I picked my way nearer along the shocking rock shelf,
hoping the spray would rise up to meet me, myself.

Seagulls roared louder and closer than anything planned;
I looked out to see and forgot I could still see the land.

Lost in a foaming green crawl, I grew smaller than me;
shrunk in a tidepool, I heaved, and I wondered. The sea

grew like monuments for me. Each wave and its coloring shadow,
bereft, wild and laden with wrack, spoke for me and had no

need of my words anymore. I was open and glad
at last, grateful like seaweed and glad, since I had

no place on the rocks but a voice, and the voice was the sea’s:
not my own. Just the sea’s.