being on the seashore

Is It the Kingfisher?



This is how I desire God on this island
With you today: basic and blue
As the sea that softens our feet with salt
And brings the living wave to our mouths
Playing with sounds of a primary language.
"God is blue," sang the poet Juan Ramon Ramirez,
Drunk with desiring, his hair, eyebrows,
Eyelashes turned blue as the kingfisher’s wings.
Is it this bird that greets us as we come
Round the eastern bend of this island;
Tells us the hairbreadth boundary between us
Is transient as the air, permeable to the blue
Of tropic skies and mountain gentian.
Where we sit on this rock covered with seaweeds,
I suddenly feel this blueness embrace us,
This rock, this island, this changed air,
The distance between us and the Self
We have longed to be. A bolt of burning blue
Lights in my brain, gives the answer
We’ve pursued this whole day:
Seawaves sing it, the kingfisher flies in it,
This island is rooted in it. Desiring
God is transparent blue—the color
Which makes our souls visible.





by Marjorie M. Evasco