Friday, December 21, 2007

Listen! Cries the Ocean

by Yaacov Dovid Shulman

Listen! cries the ocean.
So listen.
The whole night it roars like a freight train,
It rises up and sizzles against the seawall.
For an hour you can be the ocean,
And contain within yourself swift color-shifting squid
And long trees of frond-waving kelp
Amidst which the fish wind their swift glissando bodies.
In the north your waves can rise and fall like mountains.
You can lie beneath the black night sky, covered by the sheet of ice and sleep
And at the same time glaze beneath a sun hot as yellow pepper,
You can swing back and forth drawn by your desire for the moon,
The fog can cover you for hundreds of miles
And conceal your cold thoughts.
You can have no thoughts,
You can be a shapeless god who does not live
But moves with the majesty of life.

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