eyes of sand awash in a trench of tears
all i could do was sink & sift & wait
with crosscurrents of ancient memories

deserts flooded without, grain by grain
pupils flooded within, shard by shard
a tessellation of guarded hope

& i saw the turtles all the way down
& i saw the elephants falling asleep
thoughts of the flat disced earth beneath
felt soothing to my feet

i was a vision of tombs & flower voids
of dormant dolls raptured from the womb
of shallows, sunken barrows & undertows

yet above so below, steps & high walls
strewed worlds of cavernous possibility
all this in dim view of my timorous reach

& i saw the turtles all the way down
& i saw the elephants drowse in the deep
thoughts of the flat disced earth beneath
felt soothing to my feet

i breached into this world from deathless waters
& will dissolve in the chasm with time when i’m done
but for now let me take at least one lungful, if not the horizon

the longest voyage begins with the first stroke
then on to scurvied teeth & the bruises of experience
let the steady plash of oars be the sound of our freedom