SEEING IN THE DARK

When the night unrolled

Its blanket of stars 

Over

The moving sea,

Quieting its banter,

Silencing its grip

On the horizon

She breathed in the good

Of it all

As with the turtles, the lizards

The moss, the sea-birds,

The leaves and 

The slippery stones.

Tree roots made their

Way from hills deep into layers,

Mapping through, 

Down,  

Following the scent of sand 

And salt.

Their wooden fingertips bruised 

From tunneling.

And sea creatures held on

To fibrous ropes in puddles on stones

As the moon pulled them 

To drifting, watery beds.  

She thought she would sleep, 

She should sleep;

Curled in, rested out, brightened up,

Stretched wide

By the firelight of the moon

And the stories the ocean could tell,

Rocking her to sleep

Like a calf under the arm of a

Mother whale;

Drifting, 

Never drifting

Apart. 

The crabs scuttled

And pawed at her hair

As the whole earth carried on 

This way.

The scent of the past day
Carried off,

Across water and sea spray,

Shells and bones,

Creatures both

Dead and alive,

Across ships and sailors lips

Where tired eyes and worn faces

Imagined

Things soft and smooth

To other places.

Drifting.

stephanie l jordan-renz