It is a pool of trust, love,
one that we humans wade in--frolic and drown--
believing the oxygen of the water will wind us,
ignoring the wet and swamping of the hydrogenic balance.


We set ourselves afloat, careless in unrippled calm,
questing for the embrace, blind of tides, saturated in reservoir...
...there is only a boat if we have been swept from shore,
only a destination if our arms grow tired.

We have framed it in formal wood and marble,
draped it with fern and gauzy linens,
sure that our domestication of such beauty and reflection
will tame the lunar crests and quiet the pulling black depths.

In what other pool are we so anxious to plunge?
In what other concert can we swim?
From what other trust do we dare drink?
In what other mirror can we judge ourselves?


Credit: Included in 'The Best Poems of 1997',
anthology of National Library of Poetry, Owings Mills, MD