Waking

February 11, 1981

Merely by moving, a craft shakes out the long cloth of momentary marble quarried in the river's rock. Sheerly by passage, swath is foam settled to gauze. To lean upon it in time, you have to race faster than currents change from light to deep, from live to grave. You have to keep close to a keel kept going to sea. Rather than rest you rally. Rather than sleep you eye the hull that harrows a course. Rather than sink you swim desperate strokes to stay in candid touch with turmoil bright around yo u all your waking hours.