Omnipresence
I saw a pillar of cloud today,
Tall and still over the water.
I wondered if it was the God of Moses,
Come down to lead his people--
But we are floating in the steel hull of an ark
There was no cloud to guide Noah
And I have no dove to scout dry land.
I saw him in the moon that turned
The night to lasting twilight;
I saw him in the last rays of the sun
As it sank into the water.
I know he is here, in this endless bowl of blue:
I can see his promises
Stretching from the sea into the sky.
Crossing
Balmy is a word that cannot be understood until it is felt:
The heavy air before a storm as we pass an unnamed South Pacific island;
The sun, intensified in its path between sky and sea;
The sudden relief of a salty breeze on the cheek.
I was raised in the heat and sweat of subtropic summers;
In days when the water in the air denied the wind the slightest movement.
I have never known days such as these on this heat-soaked deck;
I will miss what they held in their moist, still air.
Sea Change
The ocean and the clouds are iron gray:
The color of the rain that drives across the deck at night;
And it is curious, the lack of color in the water
That has, until now, been a blue I had never imagined.
It sweeps by in increasing swells,
And makes me think for a moment
That it is the ship that is still
And only the water that moves.
Delay for Rain
There is a rhythm to this life
That makes the days pass quickly,
Like a metronome ticking off the measures
Of an oft-repeated song.
It is the waiting that mocks us
Rather than the labor:
For five days we have played cards
And written letters, waiting--
Each of us, waiting for the call to come
That we are free again
That finally, we can work, can fly,
Can escape the sultry boredom of the shop
And the disapproving glances of the staff.
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