Sea Sky

What makes the sky
So filled with silicone,
As lapis lazuli
Makes the sky from stone?

Blowing sand is stone
In sky,
As a cloud is sea thrown
High:

Thus high and low,
Trading places,
Do-si-do
With double faces,

Inverting borders
That belong
To other orders,
Different song,

As if planets
Didn't care
How an ocean ran its
Earthenware,

Spawning calm
With noisy shore,
Or from a palm
The sunlight's roar,

The way a shell
Contains the sound,
Or sounds foretell
The rocky ground.

Values by the trade wind
Mixed,
Sea with tamarind
Transfixed;

Planting silence
In the trees,
Building islands
With a breeze,

Inflorescence
On the tide,
Water with its scents
Allied;

In sandbars
Planting constellations,
And from the stars,
Plantations:

Earth and ocean
Substituted,
Each body to its twin
Transmuted.

Thus is sea,
Flickering moon-eyed,
Soundlessly
Identified:

Hints of things immense
Populate the stars—
As worlds we cannot sense
People ours.

Kailua
August 6th, 2003