A Body of Water

I claim no mentor— No teacher, no path No trail I follow, no body, no mind.

I have travelled to both edges of this land, and looked out into the boundless ocean the view of which has given me no answers.

But I look at the ocean because the ocean is never sane It is always moving, writhing, never tamed Every day a different color, the color of it depends on many things.

At high tide the rocks are covered, seaweed sways beneath the water. At low tide the cove freezes over. Chunks of ice covered in snow. A small spring surrounded by deer tracks. A tunnel leading down, spruce cone pieces at the entrance. Fingers of frost from the breathing of a tiny squirrel that lives within. Spruce trees along the cove. Wind in their needles. This time of year, their branches bend to shed snow. But wind gusts take some down every time it blows. And there, beside the frozen water, is a cleared space. I made it near where the deer come to drink, where the little squirrel lives under the snow. I make fires of spruce branches, started with birch bark to watch the tides.

Watching the ocean neither sane, nor insane. It is only a body of water. Rubbing up against the land Flooding inlets where salt crystals form where the water dries on dark, ancient rocks. ~~

We are mostly water. I heard that once but it seems impossible because every day I look at myself, I can see where my body ends And the rest of the world begins And water is boundless, only bounded by what contains it. But maybe I am not looking at myself Maybe it is an ocean I am looking at The ocean that is not made of water But of other things The ocean of what is, and what isn’t that we move through. ~~

I want to begin by letting words drift into piles in a different way. To think and write how snow blows through grass. To think about the ways water moves.

Water is always moving. It takes different forms. It touches one thing, a moment later, it has forgotten and moves on.

A deep pool on the Maine coast on an island with an oak tree above.

A trickle of water coming out from the forest falling into the pool. And me on a rock looking out to sea— one body entering another.

Water beats up against the island or flows from it; turns into snow sinks into the ground then comes out again. It is everywhere, and yet it has a place a source and somewhere it goes. ~~