Winter Ritual Poem by Edmond Sheehy

Above Hong Kong kites swoop effortlessly.
Updrafts loft them to where they hunt on high.
In the weak December light glows the harbor,
stained mahogany by the Western sky.
Undiminished in my ardor,
I swim as birds above me fly,
hovering without beating a wing.

They contemplate the regularity
with which they witness my returning
for nineteen years each winter,
the only human they'll see in the water
until the following Spring.

And, I regard high rise buildings lit by LED,
and beyond the dark Victoria Peak,
steep slopes crowded with every different form of tree,
the scenes that lure the cloud defiant predator.

Unwearied I repeat each lap,
fighting jet lag and that deeper lethargy
when I am reminded of the cycles left my mortality.
Death can come from the slightest mishap.
The kites will swarm here after me.
The tides will swell and sink repeatedly
and grind to silt the city upon this shore.

I reenact this ritual
to induce vision from a trance,
to alter my perspective of the casual,
to exhaust the body, to still the mind,
to grant eternity entrance,
so I might gaze
upon the folly that is time,
and like these kites
motionlessly climb
where neither fear nor lust excites.

Beyond the glories built by human hand,
let me drift about the sea and land,
undisturbed by passing turbulence,
resolute and vigilant.
That which we find before our eyes,
is all we seek of paradise.