Ondine

I cannot surf the unseen fathoms. The water is too bright and reflective for close approach. I must sit on the surface and wait for the depths to disclose something of their costumes, some kind of a color or two that can be irradiated by a touch of my hand to the surface of the water. Has this ever felt true? The last investigations of a twirling nebula in the outer rim of some galaxy that has been explored only once or twice, and even then at seeming gunpoint?

What kind of a symphony plays in those spaces which go undetected even by sight and feeling? What kinds of feelings show themselves to the fleshest skin this side of a rainbow and the rainest ribald sky the underdone color of a fortune-cookie that has been left out in the frying sun for too many days? The kind I can show you if you just look, is what I'd like to say sometimes. Most of the time, though, I'm content to day through my days in the ways I have done, the times I try and don't, the people I have and don't, the ones I have seen and felt. These things are what float to the surface when the mind is undone, like Ondine in the waves and her lover in the deep.