Sunday Poem

"THE OCEAN IS THE ORIGINAL MOOD RING..." 

The ocean is the original mood ring.
Often, and for days, it convinced us 

we felt an industrial grey malaise with a deep heart
of blue. The occasional whip of whitecap idea 

would bloom in our plans. We'd sit by its side
while it slept, our pens poised like fishing rods. 

When it granted an interview, it refused to talk
about its film credits or its accolades of full moons. 

It was more interested in talking about what we thought
it tasted like: fish or tears, it wanted to know. 

And it loved stalking us. Some of us would wake
with that rear-view feeling of being watched. We'd skid out 

of our dreams only to sink over our heads. When we could,
we'd spear a good conversation and carry it, wriggling, 

to its mouth. We'd find the bones of what we were trying
to say later, washed up on shore. We'd boil them to drink 

their broth then wake hungover from the truth. Some days,
the ocean would convince us we were green 

with many small ambitions, and other days we were used
aluminum foil, an offshore of seagulls dipping 

and stealing morsels of our memories. In this way, we knew
we were aging. Some days, if we were to believe it, we felt 

nothing but a progress of sky, a fleet of spaceships shaped
like clouds sailing out of our harbour in search of somewhere new.

By Sue Goyette from Ocean (Gaspereau, 2013).