On the flat platform of rock
A few barely noticed mid afternoon bodies prostrate
Themselves on unforgiving final outcrop of land
Before the oceanic vastness of swells and laps at the feet
The obligatory stroking of sun on the back then front
Precedes the immersion in a chilled pool
Without talk, without reason, without looking
The few supplicants to natural blessing take their isolated turn
Stripped of clothing and other company
A ritual of repose if not something deeper, intangible, overwhelming
The habitual yet always unaccustomed
meeting of the human with another realm
Known with unknown, become with becoming,
Smaller crustated rock pools have been here for a generation and more before that
And over there, on the platform, huge rocks split vastly
measure ancient time in their own supplication
Yet the long trembling sculpturing waves have barely begun
To beat the time of day, as a slow rhythm begins,
In the chill of watery surround, bodies slide into a salt blessed future
For a time they are freed of themselves, they move outside history
They are formed and reformed by a moving, monumental sea-born mystery.