An ode to an ancient ocean

We are all agreed that life began in the oceans,

but I wonder how.

Could it have been that the ocean looked up

and mistook the galaxies blazing with the violence of a billion stars

for its own reflection?

Or maybe the ocean felt

like I do

the frequently pointless desire

to scoop up the infinite

in rum bottles made of sturdy glass.

Could our minds have been the words

the ocean found to translate

the infinite wars

of inanimate matter on inanimate matter?

I wonder what the ocean feels now

that we have left it far behind

as our wars lay waste to entire continents

under its bleak waters.

Are we everything you imagined?

Maybe you will wake up after we have all gone asleep,

and stare anew at the skies.

I wonder if this time around

you will throw care to the winds

and just write the poems of love you have always wanted to write,

and leave brutalist literature to the brutalists,

who when faced with infinite infinities,

learn to dance,

but sadly, only one kind of dance.