Swimming Towards the Surface

Falling-away darkness—a curtain
screaming with silence, pulled
off a globe where thoughts are
blind fish swimming inside light.

Across the finish line: a revelation:

rain is creek, is river, is ocean, is rain.
Gone is the concrete mask, chipped
away with keys that would fit:

The hurricane’s eye sees the sun.

The window of tomorrow is open.

These invisible gifts are wrapped in experience.

Denial like dust kicked up
and blown away by integrity—and finally, too:
in these stone eyes is a beating heart.

I could swim out of that subterranean light.

I could walk on land.


(From the book Kairos)