Island Snorkeling
How easy it is to construct
a holiday that starts as an overlong thought.
The flights are the biggest fear, mountains,
earthquakes, hired gear for scuba diving.
Honeycomb rock is tentative. Fragments of
reef are broken like old stairways.
The islands are chiral, and the grey-green seaweed
is one story built upon another. Two legs, two feet
and two arms find one direction.
Flippers fuzzle rainbow fish, the snorkel
– a water spout for breath. The patter
is engaging, the not caring feels
so good.
You search rock pools, reef shale. Someone before you
swam here, taking shell by shell, yellow sponge,
sea stars, urchins, anemone.
The ocean is not the keeper of things
nor the creatures that pass through it.
Stay a while and you become prune-like,
a headband of algae, plankton
– a view clouded with water fans.
Equally there are many views –
the shape of weather, the group waving
frantically; the holiday, building to a stance,
as the sea makes that lovely world around you
inhaling light.
Wednesday, May 20, 2015
