In the silence at the center of an oak
the ancient word holds.
Ages growing outward, rippling forward
toward persistent flesh,
Where sensation and the soul softly kiss.

I have the ancient word in my bones,
embedded in dark marrow,
murmuring the unconscious rhythms
of ebb and flow.

Like Santiago and immortal Ishmael,
I have salt running through my veins,
a wordless poem found in siren and lost sailor.

Voices consumed, transformed into songs of the sea,
whispers of the tide, wet tongues
against weathered wood, silent sands.

Send me the saturated voice,
the deliquescent desire, drifting
in an empty boat, a falling tide.

Carved from the ancient oak,
from the ripened flesh
of the immortal tree,
come my silent children.

From my bloodied hands, sent to sea,
and ever since searching
amid the laughing gull, the empty conch,
the lost word.