As if a turtle you have laid your eggs
in a bowl of sand. Unlike the turtle
you sit next to your own heap overlong
considering the wondrous thing
   you’ve done,
the babies wrestling in the gritty dark.
And all the while the land cools steadily,
a small white light somewhere over
   the sea,
over the sea out there and finally,
deeply and slowly you remember it.
You’re setting off now. Here are your
   paddles,
this is the pale underneath of your shell
scraping the pebbles beneath the
   moon’s glare.
Yourself, one thing alone now. Can
   you feel
the water’s lift? You are already there.

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