all around us the ocean swelled and churned
yet from where we stood on the rocks
all we could see of it were quick flashes and spumes
here and there, in among the volcanic boulders
carefully, as if they might wake up, we climbed over
the gigantic walls and mounds, the sun-baked lumps
oval and hammered like metal, and saw downstream
only the vague shapes of others, almost billowy -
like solidified clouds, stretching away to even
vaguer ones beyond them, turning the narrow
waterways through valleys of lunar landscape
easing ourselves down over the massive sides
we were thirsty and hot, hungry for the cool pools below
we could make out older water in the rough grain
undulating and immobile currents, band swirled on band
mica-flecked, dusty, each seemingly moving off
as it faded, through the stone, each one a volcanic rune
each boulder an uncountable pebble and
each pebble an uncountable grain of sand
in the lava sheet’s tidal suck and drag
- two hundred thousand years old, one million
two million, fifteen million, the molten core
plumes of gasses in the darkest night, hardened to our touch
into the water: shedding my clothes, one hand braced
against the rock ledge I slipped into the knee-high
swelling water, wading out
bending over, reaching
like a blindman before me for the slippery boulder
I slid across, pushing against the white weight
of the pouring mist, my skin goose-pimpled
speckled and as bright as day
and then, part sea mist and water myself -
I turned back, smiling, calling your name
though you couldn’t hear me
calling and waving for you to climb down
from where you were, to join me there
but you wouldn't come
this is the sea:
it surrounds and guards this place
and holds it prisoner
far away
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