Is there anything better
on this day with its
crystal clear air, high clouds
and ocean breeze playing the wind chimes
than a swim in the bay
in the town where I live?
How can there be,
when the water is a gem
the facets of which
are fish and eels and sea stars
and best of all,
four longfin squid
and their vast chrome eyes
who have been here all week
by the third swim buoy
(wildly distracting the swimmers),
who have been shifting through shades
of spotted golds and speckled silvers
who are thinking only of
which one of them gets the girl?
Ah, but today our great mother
the ocean divine
granted me this:
an hour with an octopus
as she hunted and napped
first roaming and seeking
then folding down into herself
to snooze on the crest of the coral
so that I wrapped the buoy rope
around my ankle
to float near her magnificence
and time my breathing with hers,
land animal and sea cousin
both of us salt-cradled
swaying slightly, sated.
