Tuesday, August 5, 2014

Early Morning by the Sea ( published in Decanto, 8/2014)



by Catharine Otto

I feel the spaces within the stillness, and listen…
Lingering in the air, are paired the sweet, salty dampness
Declaring to my delight that the sea is nearby,
And the languorous scent of the hotel’s French milled soap,
Feeling even softer than usual against my skin.
The oblique gleam of tile, the lustrous sheen of white bathed in sunlight,
The indescribable softness and openness of the sky’s keen blue
All above me and about me.

The spaces within the stillness….
The sublime shape of a seashell
With its pristine inner world of curves,
The covert chambers formed by its fluted spirals.
And the spaces formed by the folds and turns
Of the brain and the heart,
 Capturing the secret souls within all
So that they do not fly out---premature—
Dangerously unarmed!

The fractal patterns repeated in all our desires—
Leading back to this—
The wonder in the shape of a leaf,
A seashell;
A fossil;
A life yet to be.
Each reviving a wondering child in all of us.

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