You never enjoy the world aright till the sea itself floweth in your veins.
—Thomas Traherne, Centuries of Meditation

1.
Dawn

All through his body is a joyful pulse
That says his love's more wide and canyon-deep
Than anyone can tell—the morning dew
Increases him, and he wraps round the Earth.

2.
Noon & Night

Inside his skull, the innocence of sharks
Disperses fins of rainbow, ruby, pearl;
Within the heart's a beat unspeakable,
Though peaceful, tethered to a coral branch.

3.
At all Times, in all Places

He's sportive in eternal founts of time
Where all of past and future surge as one,
Where trooping waves dance up a shingle beach,
Laughing and tossing bright confetti wealth
Of burnished glass and conch and weed to shore
In tide that's full yet always coming in.

Marly Youmans' The Curse of the Raven Mocker was recently issued in paperback (Firebird).

Copyright © 2007 by the author or Christianity Today/Books & Culture magazine.
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