Island, Sea

This island–drenched with green–appears
nearly black in the dense morning–

the coming sun will drape it with color.
Birds rustle as I pass what’s left of a ruin– 

–echoes in the packed loam, vacant
of stones an old farmer lifted 

to build a stairway to the sea: useful. 
And beautiful to descend–to the million grains

of salt, and a blue too endless to excavate. 
I climb down–a lone inhale-until

a whale’s breath bursts the surface:
liquid grey luminesced for an instant.

I think of you. Still so much unexplained–
such curiosities emerging from your sea.

These many years, I’ve mastered
letting the waters be. Vast as you are, 

you will not fill my valleys. Our love: 
wholly incomplete. We will remain

to each a willful mystery; ourselves
autonomous and joined as island, sea.

Originally published in Crux as “Saturna Island, BC”.