Oceanic
If seventy-one percent of the earth’s surface
is water—if what we see is only a fraction
If the gods give but also take away
like the purple sock in the waves
caught in my hand or the plastic bag
that bumps up against my mask—
periphery endless excess dangerous
If beauty reeks ugly If the storm
cleans one beach pollutes another
If the polyurethane bottle
from the Sea of Java turns up
in the Sea of Bali what then
of us What of the where?
What especially of the why?
This puffer speckled and boxfish
square like its name A snowflake eel
tucked inside its coral den darting
its tiny head in my mind hereafter
The ebony and white manta ray large
as a boat soars above this human body
in slow motion—fanning its wings
graceful as an angel for a mariner
British Columbia 1965
A symphony of water = baptism
soothed from canoes of the Lummi
skimming the surface of an ocean
as they fish for salmon.
A killer whale breaches in the distance.
Onshore—the deep sleep green
of giant sequoia. A herd of caribou
steeped in meadow.
We were girls, standing on the shore
of a real ocean, having just arrived
with our parents and seven siblings
in an old green station wagon, pulling
a small camper, where all in their sleeping
bags magically fit inside like a puzzle.
A grizzly standing upright, outside
our packed car, nose in air, sniffing humans.
Open water, harbor, mountains—so far from
Oklahoma, chestnut horses, a red pond.
Some nights I return to this
beauty with its mystique—
dreaming of waterfowl
and waterfall, magical—
decades into the future, now
at a time when we are old
seeking sanctuary,
at a time of glacial melt, flood,
blaze consuming forest with animals.
Its people.
Its people.
Mary Morris’s poems appear in Boulevard, North American Review, Poetry Magazine, Poetry Daily, and Prairie Schooner. She is the author of four books of poetry: Enter Water, Swimmer (selected by X.J. Kennedy), Dear October (New Mexico-Arizona Book Award), Late Self-Portraits (Wheelbarrow Book Prize), and Lanterns in the Night Market (February 2025).
