both/and

My name means horizon. A line of light or shadow.

Ever distant. Always approaching.

Hem of sky. Skin of sea.

This rosy ocean is never one thing.

Misty mornings that peel in ghostly layers

revealing the opalescent blue portrait of day.

Undulating caches of iridescent crystal

stirred by unseen forces in little quakes

never felt, never known by others.

Sunset pageant auroras of gold on fire.

Glinting silver striations shatter on the surf.

Moonbow meshes glide over this looking glass at night.

It looks like two. But when the tempest comes,

a stampede of purple waves roar apocalypse.

They draw the thick, black, low clouds

into a cauldron of blue lightning.

It looks like two. But when the marine layer settles in,

his solar lover’s breath on her cooling face.

Their haze rises in soft sighs

that dance at the periphery enshrouded.

It looks like two. But the mingled firmaments

never seem to untangle where they’ve met.

They flow in contradictions that do not undo

each other. This horizon has never been

more meaningful in the distinctions that

seem to divide it. What makes it

a horizon. The very thing that

makes it neither sky, nor sea

is that its oneness is its

identity. It is a unified

image evoked wholly

in a single word.