I lifted my hammer, set my chisel,
And with bricklayer's precision
Began to lay a seam,
Splitting apart the ocean,
Creating a firm-bounded side
And sending trailing shards and
scraped remnants
Off to whatever graveyard such rubble
As fragments of shattered water
might deserve.
There were spots -- some call them
frozen ---
Where my chiseled line remained
straight,
Grew deep, was clean except for
the small scatterings
Of flakes, an unavoidable part of
the process;
In other spots my seam quickly passed
from sight,
Washed over and hidden by recurrent
waves
As my ocean refused to still itself.
Beneath my chisel the water molecules
washed to and fro,
Confounding my every attempt at
clean separation;
Mingling past and future in a most
confusing manner;
Reducing my craft-callused hands
To those of a soft-skinned novice.
I roared at them as Thor
And shook my hammer in menace to
no avail.
I lifted shards of water, and watched
them grow together
And flow apart,
Their indifference to my chisel
evident.
I dropped my Stanley 210,
Corroding in the harsh salt water;
Stared at the flecks of rust forming
on my hammer
As the wood handle swelled and softened.
I looked at the red blood and white
puss
Flowing from my wet and blistered
hands
And I retired,
The unbroken ocean flowing still
around me.
12-2-99
