Grasping Hope

Believing the water 

Clear with no seafloor

Unchanging substance

Obliged to erode

Refracting reflecting 

Drought seeping dry 

Streaming in veins 

That pulse with the season 

Hidden and riddled

I don’t know the season

Under your eyebrow

Under your rib

Dripping and crashing

But not like a seashore

That moves for the moon 

Preparing the tides

Feel the wet

Stand the cold

Drew me under 

Shades uninvited

Exploring un-rhythm

By chanting the ancients

for stars that can’t sing

Indefinite color

Flowing down mountains

Or crushed on the jetty

Or caught in my hand

What picture books color

We stain it a memory 

While sources concur 

I had to believe

Your hue of the ocean 

And river and tide pool 

Afraid they tinge value 

That I may not have seen

How does it look

When you look

At the water

Observing un-tinted

I don’t know if it’s real

Transparently absent

A dream-colored blue