The kettle bubbles and clicks – I can hear the ocean from my pillow – trees tickle the breeze; a bird raises its silhouette against the melted butter sky to peer through the window – same same – the only thing missing is you – feel like I strained my brain this morning trying to figure out where I was when I woke up – couldn’t settle in the panic of not-knowing – being comfortable and well-rested wasn’t enough –  I had to haul myself from the dreamworld of mystery into the dominion of mind, and now I feel hard-done-by – why do I rob myself of magic in so many ways? – I am left with scraps to piece together a little prose, a thin poem or a threadbare song – so much beauty has been washed down the sink – I cried last night as a whole island, like I had to become that big to comfortably grieve – the rivers and lakes were pools and streams of my tears, upwelling form the depths and washing the land clean – land that tremored under the hands of time – beheld the dance of the moon and sun – had nothing to apologize for, and nothing to hide – all the mysteries known to me, ineffably, living in plain site – I don’t want to be an island, beloved, I don’t – on my tongue a rock is not a stone, but in my body they are one – I keep wondering what if I am though; what if I’m an island, how do I we fare? – wouldn’t you rather a little dove you can keep in a tree out back? – how would you fit big old me next to you? – are you cut out for the sea-faring? – my heart is a ferryman – my work mythologically carved – crossing the Styx to other worlds to meet death – so I know where all things end – and still I go there – have you asked me to stay, really? – I’m straining my ears to hear your professions, wanting them shouted and drummed in battle cry – make it known; the sun will burn them and the wind will rip them apart anyway! – yours is not a fragile heart; it beats a fervent foreign rhythm to your romance – I long for my heart to turn towards that sound, that it knows as its own, before I load my boat and sail away –