I.

Over three thousand years ago, perhaps,

A proud Atlantean woman

Might have held you high above her head,

Taking water to her man,

In the fertile fields,

Her eyes shining in the sun,

Her tread firm and steady,

Her robe rippling in the wind.

II.

I scrape around you gently,

With probing fingers in the clay

The jets wash all around me.

I saw you!

You were a shade different from the rest.

I just happened nearby like a fish.

You waited through the changes

Of fiery day to watery night;

While someone thought of building pyramids,

And prophets passed like used-up pencils,

Some Greater One wrote a letter:

Eternity’s patterns of revelation. . .

A continuing creation.

III.

You are dressed by caressing waters,

Shaped by long loving fingers that sway

In the Grand Artist’s waters like winds at play.

You are a vase of ancient clay,

A vessel filled with light.

I hug you like I do a baby.

I give you (you give me) a fantastic growth of legs.

Quickly pulling consciousness tinglingly upward toward the day

[Toward where Halley’s Comet spins round and round]

I glance at my second hand

Aaaaaa aaaaaaaaaa aaaannnn nndd d d AAHH!

Think of breathing.

Suddenly

I come out into the sun,

Holding you high above my head,

Smiling in the seabreeze,

Touched by Discovery!

Vicente Reyes