Mariner's Song

If you've seen one wave, you've seen them all.
Why don't they come in different colors
Making a rainbow waterfall
In reds and purples, mauves and yellows
Instead of this green after green sea swell?

What do they do all night at the bottom
But churn their green grains; mud and shells
As furniture, or a fish as totem,
Wasting that darkness as the sea wills,
Instead of a rainbow, waterfalls?

We cried for color as the boat went over;
The day was blue; the sea was green.
I said, "Love should come out of cover,
Instead of repeating the face, the scene," ---
As wave after greenest wave went over.

- Howard Moss