Long ago the earth was made of sound.
Cold soil was human murmur, water a fluid
sequence of woven rolling tone. A single domain
perpetual and loud. Its final morning we swam
through compact cadence and riff. On the half-hour toll
a roven whale slap tore the invariant sea—

One place since contains only ground and us.
Offshore iron cavern quiet. Sometimes being
is two bodies moving. A ferry leaves its harbor
full of rope. We were there, off Newfoundland,
eastern air drying split crags and mudstone.
We lay in a bay of moss and straw, slow-
growth ice sealing our hands to the bluff.