The Indian ocean,

In which the setting sun

Falls golden

To the wetted lips

Of waves infinite,

Speaks in white-water rumbles,

And the wind pulses warmly on my skin

And tussles at my hair.

–

These and much else

Call the mind to their sensational happening

And I feel my body in the world,

Sights and sounds

All around me.

–

But what is this me

In which the world appears?

What perceives

The golden mirror to the absolute west,

Laid upon the sea

Like an avenue,

The last light before dusk?

–

If, for a moment

I withdraw from my sun-warmed skin,

The buffeting wind

And my hair rustling like leaves,

What can I say

About being?

–

What can I say about the one

Who perceives these beautiful things,

The one who sees

The fishing boats heading out

To catch the night fish?

–

I try again,

Withdrawing from the worldly things,

Saying aloud “I am”;

Finding its resonance,

That to which the portal refers,

And fall from the sensational skin

And the light fading

And the wind’s playfulness.

–

I fall away into I,

Into dimensionless I,

Into love and well-being

And that which is indescribable,

That which defies the poet

And renders him

To nothing but inescapable warmth.

–

And then I open my eyes

To the perfect globe of the sun,

A ball of orange

Muted by the horizon’s haze,

And find being hauled with me

Like the fishermen’s silver clad nets

That come to the surface so bountiful.

–

Now, being seems wholly in the world,

In everything within earshot and gaze.

The waves are speaking

As if each drop were lubricated,

Each molecule part of the soft fluid whole.

And the wind too is a song

Of whispers gathered by the clouds,

Lovingly caressing

Those who’d be gladly touched.

–

Who is infusing

And who is infused?

It does not matter much

In beingness,

For no one but the One exists,

No one but the One

Is flushed by love,

No one but the One

Is as open as the universe is.