Poem

There is a birth every morning,
the sides of the sea-wall breaking
into the new sight. It is certain
this must happen every morning.

The rocks lift away from under
the new skin of the water.

There is no reminder of the breaking,
the halving of the sense at reason’s falling,
the excavation of the heart’s regions
as it is emptied out.

The depth here in the harbour
moves out with the ledges under water.

The ear listens at the new stretches
but there is nothing,
just that it deepens, widens;
there is nothing underneath but silence.

13 September 2001