We can trust the sea
to wrap haloes around hard places
trust it to organize what sometimes seems too much or too brittle
into patterns of intricacy, intention and beauty.
Infant barnacles colonize a rock's
deep crevices, transforming them into mooring places
where new life burgeons.
The sea knows what to hold
what to release
and when
relies on the tides' insistence
and assistance
And sometimes. . . well, sometimes it seems we must stand
on our heads and do flick-flacks before we see - or can recognize -
there's a small flinty continent inside each and every one of us
that is all things at once; breastplate, boat, ancient instrument, stepping stone, ocean, heart. . .
