April Poetry: Trying to Draw the Sea

In recognition of Poetry Month, and to celebrate our treasure trove of Orcas Island poets, Orcas Issues is pleased and honored to offer daily poetry during April.

TRYING TO DRAW THE SEA
by Shannon Borg

More white than green, more brown than blue,
……….the sea gathers, dismantles

sunlight, rocks and kelp refracting in pools
……….of green that don’t mean leaf,

gray that doesn’t say stone, across it a net
……….of words for light, shimmering,

changing, clouding itself like an animal hiding
……….from death, before beast becomes prey,

the shoreline keeps moving, swaying against itself,
……….indistinguishable from earth and sky.

Jellyfish are translucence upon translucence, lenses
……….seeing, cataracts obscuring. I stand at the sea’s blurred

edge, like an insect with my stinger pencil poised
……….to kill, to still the kelp’s dancing arms,

the lapping tongue of waves, stones drying
……….and drowning. All this I kill

with my pencil, as the jellyfish swallow
……….and breathe, and I stand, a dying weed,

wet to the ankles, smaller than the smallest shell.
……….There is nothing called the sea.

There is nothing that is the thing we mean
……….when we say it—unchanging monolithic,

or small, composed. On paper, depth
……….becomes surface, surface becomes

distance. Does this way of thinking make a sea
…..…..of your face? The closest thing to me

is surface, the surface the farthest away.