Craig W. Steele

Thalassa

Can ye fathom the ocean, dark and deep,
where the mighty waves and the grandeur sweep?
―Fanny Crosby

Waves of feathery spray fall skyward, condense
into frothy necklaces of whipped meringue, meld
with the next swell in fluttering displacements:
restless; patient.
 
Waves birth chains of crested flowers, blooming …
drooping, blooming … drooping,
in fleeting seasons of rhythmic respiration:
complex; simple.
 
Waves undulate in saltatory dances through a briny Jacuzzi,
stretching to the hazy meniscus of a notional horizon,
sorting through a scree of shells within a foamy din:
boundless; bounded.
 
Waves encapsulate eternity in bracelets
of intermingling molecules, indissoluble, touching
everything of which all things are made:
eternal; ephemeral.
 
Fathom the ocean: float.
 
 
 
Craig W. Steele grew up in Texas and Pennsylvania and currently resides in the suburban countryside of northwestern Pennsylvania, not far from Lake Erie, where he is a professor of biology at Edinboro University. His poetry has appeared in numerous anthologies, literary journals and magazine, most recently in The Lyric, the Aurorean, The Fib Review, Stone Path Review, Plainsongs, Enhance and elsewhere.