Voices Across the Water
Voices across the water,
captured by down swells,
shoved deep into the ocean.
If it rises too soon, an updraft takes
the message straight to the heavens,
not to be delivered in this life.
The trick, the skill, in talking to those you love
across a body of water,
and ocean,
is to guide the voice low at first,
to the horizon,
then catch the right up swell.
The path is dangerous and usually fails,
clipping its wing with a wave and crashing
into the blue-not a crash.
The moisture is absorbed slowly at first,
a tissue atop a puddle,
until the voice laden with water
abandons the struggle, then
to fall to the sand floor like a mannequin
in angel robes.
To capture the up swell at the right place,
right time,
is to time a train perfectly in the Italian countryside,
or to love so entirely you labor without food
on a trivial note about when the mortgage bill is due,
investing every grain of wit and sincerity
a torn piece of paper will accept.
The rising voice must not stall with steepness,
Nor lose confidence in the advance.
The correct breeze will take you high,
so will the breeze of deceit,
that false prophet,
so high that you even miss the heavens
to starve in space,
in the vacuum of amorality that parades as relativity.
A horizon wind may even start strong,
yet abandon you in mid air,
closer to the cruel sun than the young Icarus would dare,
closer still that even the mission is lost in heat,
the traceless evaporation of a dew drop on an Egyptian rock.
On a perfect wind, on a perfect breeze,
the decent is imperceptible to the voice.
Without warning, sea birds appear,
jellyfish dot the canvas chart below
without pattern,
not to be confused with randomness,
the perfect balance to the voice’s purpose.
Lying on your back on the only dock within
one hundred miles that dares so far into the water,
you must calm the voice in the falling arc,
graciously thanking the winds and sea for the gift
of compliance, which is owed to no mortal,
regardless the of voice’s substance.
Spotting the end of the journey,
the voice prepares to be received.
The winds of the new shore show
alarm at the intruding sound,
but do not react,
as seasons taught the shore to learn before
turbulence.
On the grass that grows out of the sand,
the recipient,
the recipient of the voice,
sleeps beneath a yellow umbrella,
wine bottles and failed notes
scattered about.
The voice
--on its own--
accepts the mission and attempts
to slow,
to stall,
to avoid
the result of closed reception.
On the other side of the ocean
it is known that the voice will self-destruct
against the rocks of the shore,
proudly, yet sadly and with duty,
aborting the journey short.
On the other side of the ocean,
another voice is created,
and begins to sail low against the water,
to the horizon,
to catch another chance.