nigel baldacchino

The sun sets,
shadows die, taking over,
and everything I see
sheds some skin:
earth’s bare surface now resembles its caverns,
from this shore the sea now resembles its depths,
and the sky reveals its darkness.

I feel better about the sea at night,
as waves vanish all the while before breaking.
It rings truer, a sitting dim mass
carrying strips of ashen foam,
like tethered butterflies,
flocking in shallow and shallower currents.

Nothing admits my inner distances like the sea does.
Every trapped stretch unclenches,
unfurls & roams. I chart everything.

The sea is not a creature.
It can ride on its own back,
at once:
contain and express calm and storm,
absorb and absolve,
save the floating and kill the drowning,
wrestle at shore and rest at depth,
reflect light and contain it,
hide what it is by telling the truth.