ETHICS Comments

I stand before the sea, before its waves,
before the tides stirred by September, before the grays
and blues that alternate with strange greens;
a voice speaks of madness, or of the empty gaze
of fish, or of a topic dried up like seaweed
at low tide; a wind swept the beach
in the silence of afternoon, restoring an ancient unity
to the body of the waters. The sea, meanwhile, thinks
it has been forgotten. Its depths guard the images
no longer preserved in dreams, arms that grasp
onto shipwrecked masts. An abstract ship
sails slowly over the horizon that the morning didn't see,
passing to the other side of the earth, oblivious
for the time being to the music of the ports. The poem,
I was told, didn't notice this distraction: it crossed
the boundary of eternity, donned nocturnal
words, and allowed death to contaminate it.
From the shore I don't perceive this; and I recite it
slowly, repeating in a low voice
all of its contradictions.
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