#212 Kevin Brophy Water poem

#212 what we find

the flood that unravels a shallow gully-creek

and scatters stones afresh below our feet 

waves and rainbows broken into daylight

darkness become a delta settling over night

until it leaves us for the sea of fish and ice

the sea of birds and ships—of blues so blue

they deepen into black—the sea so lost to water 

moon-sea cloud-sea sea of sailors tumbled over 

we walk the deserts yes but from well to well 

we must bend to mountain glaciers and dwell 

in shade that’s shallow dew-touched damp 

and reminiscent of the bottom of a lamplit sea 

we dream of gathering the sea into our arms

fall beneath it in the night—long for it to take us

to the secret coldness in its heart—to creatures

shaped by its weight and silence—electric fish 

with monstrous tentacles that wave at nothing 

but the water pressing something nameless in 

until blindness turns on sunken ships and long dead

fish in sand and mud—last shapes held in vast

unshaped currents of itself, water beyond memory 

torn from stars filled dark with ice and slurry 

the creek is straightened out

the rainbow sits above the valley

waves keep sounding at the point 

clouds are larger than the cities 

leaves drip steadily their one word song 

of how the water came solid as a bone 

adrift like feathers—the creek is stripped 

of wood of sand all is washed away 

the torrent knows nothing in the end is here to stay