Swing Low II (The First Water)

The water never touched my skin… It learned the shape beneath… The ferryman forgot my face… And called me by the reef… I crossed the weathered window Where memory had grown thin, And left my name behind the glass That was never glass to begin. No shore remained Only the cathedral of the ocean floor, Its pillars made of vertebrae, Its mouths still praying at the door. The reef stretched out An Archive without end, Of every world that bloomed and learned to end. The Inventory was written into bone A billion extinctions on a single throne. Each rib a scripture. Each skull a bell. Each silence held a name No tongue survived to tell. Swing low, sweet silence! Further than the stars can sleep! Swing low, sweet silence! Where the oldest hungers keep! No Jordan now… No Styx… No east… No west… Only depth… Only pressure… Only the jabber underneath. The barnacled throne stood empty. Its king was only Time. Its crown had fused with living shell. Its scepter breathed in brine. The sea wrote Genesis Backwards… into none. Every wave erased a god. The Great Clearance had begun. And there… at last… the hand. Not reaching down Waiting. Its fingers carried coral eyes. Its veins were filled with teeth. Its shadow stretched beneath the world Like something dreaming underneath. Neither judge nor savior. Only the patient invitation Of the First Water. Carry me lower… Where even darkness drowns, Where every god forgets the sound Of their ancient crowns. Where language molts into bubbles. Where thought grows gills. Where the soul becomes a fossil In the Archive that never fills. Carry me home… Not upward. But backward Before the Word was spoken. Before the waters learned division. Before anything had the mercy To die. That wasn’t His hand… It was mine… It had always been waiting…