In the bare silence of the main,
Can starlight, laddering salt water,
Shudder deep into what sightless creature
Hangs there? To matter, I mean,
To make a difference to those locked eyes.
If we, weighted by the sea,
Tonight tried finding under ocean
Roads by the moon-
Though the moon blazon snowy light in heaven
Or turn blood mad, eclipsed,
We might, feeling on our muscles the swell of tides,
Sense the sound of a passage
But not see a way:
Feeling is what we know.
I know my life hurts you.
Though I love you, loved you first,
Bore you inward, my sons,
Held in my black sockets your images upside down,
I would have done the same, anyway, as I have done-
Sounded out as truly as I could fair passage,
Discovering false by false feeling, changed.
Vibrations of light, even sunlight,
Make no sound in water.
They come from so far.
And O, listen, I have no eyes.