Swells

The very longest swell in the ocean, I suspect,

carries the deepest memory, the information of actions

summarized (surface peaks and dibbles and local sharp

slopes of windstorms) with a summary of the summaries

and under other summaries a deeper summary: well, maybe

deeper, longer for length here is the same as deep

time: so that the longest swell swells least; that

is, its effects in immediate events are least perceptible,

a pitch to white water rising say a millimeter more

because of an old invisible presence: and on the ocean

floor an average so vast occurs it moves in a noticeability

of a thousand years, every blip, though, of surface and

intermediacy moderated into account: I like to go

to old places where the effect dwells, summits or seas

so hard to summon into mind, even with the natural

ones hard to climb or weigh: I go there in my mind

(which is, after all, where these things negotiably are)

and tune in to the wave nearly beyond rise or fall in its

staying and hum the constant, universal assimilation: the

information, so packed, nearly silenced with majesty

and communicating hardly any action: go there and

rest from the ragged and rapid pulse, the immediate threat

shot up in a disintegrating spray, the many thoughts and

sights unmanageable, the deaths of so many, hungry or mad.

Source: A Coast of Trees (W. W. Norton and Company Inc., 1981)