What the Ocean Dreams at Night

“You are not a drop in the ocean. You are the entire ocean, in a drop.” —Rumi

How can I explain to you that one night 

I lay face up on a bench beneath 

rivers of stars and forgot about the sea 

murmuring below me at the base of the cliff,

only breathed its rhythm, 

the earth’s pull, the moon’s lift. 

Can I tell you how the sea entered me—

unburdened of purpose, riddled 

with travelers and hunters,

shadows and chandeliers spinning in its currents?

Though I am smaller than the smallest speck

in the largeness of galaxies and time, 

I held an ocean 

inside the cavity of my chest, in the glass vial

of my mind—sea, heaven, earth, porch. 

And singing. There was 

singing in the deep drifts, I tell you, singing.

Published by The Inflectionist Review, Issue 17 (January 2024)