Ocean In Tension

Ocean In Tension

Four hundred and forty FIVE bends around the river
and through the anger and the fear, past the peace and the quiet,
via the suffering and the joy, the love and the hate, the ups and the downs,
the side-streams and the banks, the damns and the bridges—

I am finally here, right here and now, right in the mouth,
beyond the delta of all deltas, beyond the impermanence,
where the river meets the sea, where the journey widens,
current crashing into waves of influence, excitement stirring—

Yet—
disillusionment crashes into me: 
Not serenity!
This is not the peace for me! 

The current’s luring me through the mouth of power!
I can not escape the painful salt-taste
forced upon my senses, wind attacking me,
weather making me harder than the river.

Yet—
in my passage through impatience and disbelief
I float outward far, outward further to
the unknown ocean deep, the waves are sickening,
the tears are drying in the salty wind that urges me

downward, I breath deeply, diving downward, downward still,
down into to the deep blue deep,
down where up looks bright and gold,
downward where I can Behold!

The bottle spinning in air?

The bottle—
                  —spinning in air?

Triumph gone, triumph wrong,
I have come to where “was” had gone,
swimming to where it all began,
the one and all, and “that I am,”

the beginning and end,
the purposeless purpose,
the long circular journey . . . 

Never ends.