Brian Swann

THE OCEAN

Outside my window a blue jay, two sharps,
spondees, a brief urge as I look out toward
the distant ocean moving slowly, saving all it can,
at night throwing up stones and pebbles I find
come morning, sea-sheen on them, some you can
almost see through, others anatomies with veins,
scintillate of foam, precipitate of waves, so many,
almost no limits, for in the depths space goes on and on,
no doors, things closer and far away at the same time,
passing though themselves, constantly beginning
as if nothing’s to pass through, calling across
vast distances, no need of reply, seeming to stand still
capaciously with all hues and shades to darkness,
at all angles, catching on everything, making music
of wrecks and refuse, jellyfish bellies, backs of whales,
hunting back and forth, round and round, inside or out,
heavy as breath held, light as breath suspended,
bulked with all the creatures in it who call in codes
of distance the thrum and strum of desire, phantoms
inhabiting us, absence generating presences, thrust
and fugue of zero, too huge to hold, too deep to know.

BRIAN SWANN is the author of fourteen poetry collections, including Imago (Johns Hopkins, 2023), the novel Huskanaw, and five fiction collections, including Ya Honk! Goes the Wild Gander (Mad Hat Press, 2023). He is a former director of the Bennington Writing Workshops.