TWO Rivulets side by side,
Two blended, parallel, strolling tides,
Companions, travelers, gossiping as they journey.
For the Eternal Ocean bound,
These ripples, passing surges, streams of Death and Life,
Object and Subject hurrying, whirling by,
The Real and Ideal,
Alternate ebb and flow the Days and Nights,
(Strands of a Trio twining, Present, Future, Past.)
In You, whoe’er you are, my book perusing,
In I myself—in all the World—these ripples flow,
All, all, toward the mystic Ocean tending.
(O yearnful waves! the kisses of your lips!
Your breast so broad, with open arms, O firm, expanded shore!)
this poem is a love poem, but one about the mortality of us all – and of our entwined existences
the imagery of opposites that run parallel and then their eventual meshing – to arrive at the alpha/omega, i.e. the ocean – is mesmerizing, as i read this two days after the devastating tsunami that killed more than 50,000 people –