Aquarium

Like crustaceans,
our minds entombed in bone,
we scrape the muddy bottom deep
   this ocean murk of time,
pulled by currents yet unknown.
The distant stars give but a glimpse
the golden stillness far above,
where hazy suns will float like birds
   forever calm in silent splendor.
Our minds reach for that lucent brightness
with fragile, brittle, thin ideas
like tiny pincers – teeth that break
then tumbling, spinning, spiral down
to form the porous the reefs of thought
that frame our hopes, our lives, our ways.
And so unseen, unsure, unfound,
we crawl these crumbling ridges notched,
claws just waving feebly in the air,
until a time beyond all days
a hand comes down to grab our shell
and lift us through the sea of time
   far above the dark of life
to the shining dawn that’s pulsing bright –
our minds now sudden glorious free,
dripping grandeur, drinking light.

originally published in Aug. 2002 Panorama, revised Dec. 2006