Stopping to admire nature’s imputed

dream promiscuous resplendence,

she turns to pose the question:

“What is more real—the painter, the paint, or the painting?”

She gathers an empty bottle washed

ashore and tosses it far to sea.

It sinks, fills, becomes ocean,

I see through ages—it settles

by a rock and life begins

inside the glass, an algoid spreading

of eventual sprouting weeds

reaching for light wrapping around

the rock an enveloped garden,

an ocean changed.

She surrounds me with her embrace,

returning thought to moment,

She is creation. Behind her veil of flowing hair

I see her smile, a presence unbound.

“ExistenceI become!” she shouts,

arm open to the sun.

I see her stretch across

the horizon. She rides upon a wave.

She is next to me. I inhale her breath,

the refulgence of heaven.