-- THE SEA ABOVE THE SKY --

John Herlihy

The sea above the sky,

There, a story to be told.

A wondrous revelation to espy,

A sea luminous to behold.

At the seashore do take note,

On the sea surface, a rhythmic tale.

Mesmerizing with the sounds it spoke,

Its inner depths lies beyond the pale.

An other world with beauty to behold,

A fathomless world plunging downward.

Its eerie rhythms will our minds enfold,

Held in thrall as we gaze dreamily upward.

Lie upon the surface to keep afloat,

The sea below the sky, oh so vast.

Its music captured in a single note,

Music ever-present, no future, no past.

The horizon draws a fine line,

At earth’s end, a threshold.

Sea/sky united in sounding rhyme,

As celestial mystery overflowed.

Sea and sky as symbols of the eternal,

Suns and moons adrift on a sealess shore.

The stars whisper their mysteries nocturnal,

The black sea and sky kiss behind a door.

Let us now speak of the sea above the sky;

For this, I entreat you to close your eyes.

Haven’t you ever wondered how or why?

Miraculous wonders only God could devise.

The sky gives a hint with the arrival of night,

The endless blue morphs into endless black.

Mirrored in the sea, tiny flecks of moonlight,

Visions of before the creation as flashback.

Twilight gives entrance into the sea of night;

Alteration of day and night a mystery foretold.

For once we see the universe in its true light,

An endless sea of emptiness, remote and cold.

Now let us delve further as we lift the veil,

The veil of darkness over our mind and sight.

Into the nether regions of the blue sky to sail,

Beyond its horizon into a sea beyond skylight.

Finally we arrive, but keep your eyes closed still;

No need to open them such wonder to behold.

My hands tremble as I write with feathered quill;

My patience set aside as I strive to be more bold.

Light of lights now arising in this voluminous sea;

Shreds of lingering darkness reveal gold and silver.

Brilliant flashes of light as the hurried night did flee,

Fired by surges of light afloat on this celestial river.

Time to open one’s eyes and finally see the answer,

A question that has been living inside us forever.

Always stalking in the shadows as a wild panther,

The ultimate soul question now as light as a feather.

There it is, a dome within a dome within a dome,

Clouds by day, stars by night, far into the beyond.

There it is, a home within a home within a home,

Sublime miracle of it all, touched by divine wand.

And so, all things come to pass and drift away,

Drifting into the current of a vast universal sea.

From unique individual lives on an appointed way,

That ultimately finds fulfillment in a unified destiny.

Far beyond near and distant horizon of mysteries,

Into this sea above sky, a story beautifully told.

To land upon the threshold between two eternities,

To this vast sea of luminosity, so beautiful to behold.

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Copyright © John Herlihy

Saturday 22 January 2022