The Poem with No End

For those who don’t come to the end of this poem,

some harsh and endless wave of ocean

will bring to you the forever vision, the way a mother weeps

the salt of ocean from her eyes.

A father searches forever, thinking back to how it happened

that one country turned against itself,

unleashed the poison and army on its quiet citizens

until some travelers risked life for amnesty,

paid all to journey in the rubber float with others

all too low in the water, no one moving. The father speaks

to the child, Look at the flying fish. Look son, the whale on the horizon.

See the long shining of the quiet ocean.

A small fish lands on a girl’s lap. She only smiles.

But water has many voices

and unknown, unseen waves.

A human is a meager thing

in such immensity, the way a little shoe is small on the stones

where unknown travelers hoped for amnesty.

And though the mother and father searched a lifetime,

all that was ever seen was a shoe, the small cold

shoe washed up on dark stone.