To the Son of Poseidon

Inspired by a special muse I met in Greece this summer

Perched atop Mt Olympus,
Suspended like a tree in bloom,
He was called from his godly realm,
To taste his next slice of life.

Down, down, down
He descended,
Towards the Sea.

At last at home,
He conducted great feats.
Diving fearlessly into the ocean depth,
Like a dolphin.
Though hunting for nothing more
Than beauty, freedom, flow.

Yet with time he grew weary of the water,
Its vastness, its coldness, its loneliness.
And returned to Olympus.
Though there, too, he was unsatisfied,
Longing for the ocean’s soothing currents.

For years, he raced between the two extreme,
The heavenly palace of the Gods,
And the dark watery depths in Hades’ shadow.
For millennia, the cycle ebbed and flowed.

Until one morning,
Upon his return to the sea,
He stood at the water’s edge,
And looked down into the liquid glass.
Unusually clear, uncannily still,
He saw a man look back at him.

Or was it a man?
Or his own reflection?
Or perhaps a man reflecting back his own reflection.
He could not tell.

And suddenly,
His eyes were blinded,
Like Apollo’s light had flared back from the ocean,
And his eyelids closed,
Really, for the first time.

And he recognized the presence in the water,
It was not another man,
Nor his countenance,
The reflection was of his very own heart.

All he had been seeking,
In the mountains, in the seas,
Through the winds and water,
Was already there.
In his center,
In the hidden caverns within.

He sobbed
Timelessness tears,
And sat still,
Softening, melting, into the sand below his feet,
Until his physical form was no more than dust.

And a great wind came,
And swept his sandy soul away.

Scattered into the depths of the sea,
And upwards towards the highest mountain peaks,
Until his essence was absolutely everywhere,
While at the same time, truly nowhere.

He was wholly alone,
And wholly omnipresent,
Simultaneously.

And
For the first time felt
the constancy of impermanence.