T h e   S o u n d   o f   W a t e r

What is the sound of water?

That year, and in that place,
it was the sound of welcomes and departures

as the brightly painted boats bobbed about
then slowed as the waves slowed

a language in which the mysteries were active
and which I tried to come to grips with

one that spoke of history
but one which shifted and would not stay still

in which the sound of water was a lyric of tides
and possibilities

those welcomes and departures it held before me
and which I gave myself to.

Was that the answer to my question?
One that was tentative and not a definition?

Most of all it was a music I surrendered to
being, as it was, somewhat familiar-

a set of rhythms in which my question had no substance
for the rhythms were everything

something I tried to equal in words
and in the manner in which I perceived them

that year and this year also,
that place or this, the way the mind also shifted

to win a little victory from it
though there was much l could not answer

neither in the way I surrendered to it
nor in the ways in which I interpreted it

interpreting it now
now that I am elsewhere and it is so much later

most of all allowing its answers access
to that which in me is eager to accept

that quality, that density, I still try to penetrate.