Sea Salt

Sea Salt



I lick the salt from my lips

And watch the sun set through the dune grass.

It sinks flame-red in the surging waves,

Etches gold filigree along cresting combers,

Then changes copper as salt-laden water

Slides up the dark beach in foam-laced patterns.

Hues of crimson reflect starfire

In compounds of hydrogen and oxygen.



Earth’s star sinks below the liquid horizon.

The planet tilts another degree toward night.

The wine-red heaven darkens,

Then bursts into constellations.

My eyes adjust to light birthed eons ago.

Light years away a supernova expands filling emptiness

With energies that split atoms and recombine elements;

Hurl them into a void where gravities coalesce comets.



Icy aggregates of dust and water

Trailing long comma tails,

Frozen time traveling in space,

Until smashing into this hollow

Into this mare pacifica, melt into these waves.

How violent the ice storm? How many the millennia?

Filling seas with water and salts,

The same salts that run in my blood.