words: Work for the Day

favorite

billow

after 

container

 

 

WORK FOR THE DAY

Your assignment: design a container

for the sea. It must embrace each whale 

and fleck of plankton. Of course, you will think

of your favorite tropical fish, the rich

coral canyons, the deep kelp forests,

the sea otters and singing dolphins, but

you must must include the rest:

great white sharks and red tides,

the deadly stinging jellyfish. 

Your container must hold every calm

and billow, every island and basin

and estuary and brackish backwater.

Leave nothing out. The tsunami must be

there, and the pale blue impossible calms

after the storms have passed.