POETRY | EMPTINESS | BUKOWSKI

Ode to the Sea

In your letters you say you have only read about the sea I write back that it’s only heavy water and diluted stone that fills every goddamn person with the lightness of being chips away at your masonry till the grand exteriors erode and you see how you are just like the rest inside with superficial densities weaving a net of words to keep anyone from looking too thoroughly we are all reed boats that belong to water just by traversing its surface, all of us sailors assigning patterns to a fluid entity seeking eyes: strange, light and full of wonder: perpetually searching for us. infrequent, sudden, shifting in ourselves spending whole lives by simple truths that we can’t hold

“if you can keep me drifting, I can keep you afloat.”