Never to Awaken

 

 

Your eyes grasped the whisper of shore, 

Heard it speak in its sleep-

Heard it say 

As you glided quietly through the sand...leaving no trace...

“Roar of a thousand lions”, 

Heard it murmur, 

“Hiss of enormous serpents”, 

Heard it state, 

“Non verbis sed rebus”.

Oracularly, you heard the shore's reflections 

Mirrored in your ears

As it moaned like a Pythia, ancient beyond all reckoning,

In a trance deep as the ocean,

Uttering copious gibberish of tides, 

Compendious rants of sea wrack, 

Complicated riddles of wind born prophecy

Recorded by the priesthood of cliffs

And given to you to interpret.

Various meanings through your mind meandering

Like the swift journey of the moon 

Through the Twelve Houses,

The future construed by you, a clever astrologist

Of moods, whims, and intuitions.

 

You found as you walked across the shore

That it was fast asleep, 

Never to awaken but to breathe 

Heavily inside a dream.

Beneath the black coverlet of night 

It wore only stars and surf

And lay before the long caress 

Of delicate feet.

 nōn verbīs sed rebus = “not by words but by things”. Lit. “not words but things”