I. Swift our passage in midmorning hours;

we crossed tide plains downstate

faint of speech, abiding in peace to anticipate

the miles to come—imaginative, I strode the bowers

of my best history, times I were unacquainted

with sacrifices of heart—before you, I was not in love.

An Osprey sailed bored courses above

our cottoned land specked by wood barns tainted

from crueler labors, now safe beyond our time;

We were fellows, unbounded in a stormless nation...

We quit the roadway and beheld sapphire variations;

the sea’s rich taxonomy of airs

veering their welcome, their odd brine—

To Hatteras I leave my boyhood; that September...

II.

You ran for the tide—I lingered timidly behind—

Halting at the brink, you watched water undulate

before you—cold, unwon, insatiate.

I statued myself, to commit you, heart and mind

to the orchestral fathoms, callous underworlds.

You arced your warm body, dove mind first—

had I imagined your return? Alone I rehearsed

sordid destinies—then, fizzing chariots would herald

you forward like liberty!—you stumbled out like a gift

of indeterminable horizons. I went for you

but, entering, the sea calmed into a blue

and solemn length. Together in blue-green motions

we treaded lightless environs—laughing one laugh, adrift

the mystery of water, whose gasps phrased you my devotion.

III.

Now souled with rest, our exhaustion march;

our ascent. We stretched, sun frisking our nude

for whatever water remained—a homecoming, an attitude

of wellness. A seabird took wing; its pearlescent arch

shot through with sunbeams; purer affectations

which concluded you: Envisage of Fate

intertwined with thrill. I reasoned away mortality, reinstated

my gaze upon the sea riotous with derision

swapping tone under cloud; disordering my assumption.

In my wonder, I traced your goodness:

Drops—no, crystals!—rolled off your ribs, aimless

refugees of a Spartan sun begging the vestiges

of virtue from your tall form, breaking my conscription

to all fears—and this was the worth of the ages...