Pitched bottles

Pitched bottles                                                                                          

I’m running low on ink, pen,

stationary, bottles and cork,

the Milky Way moving above me

like a vast blue sea, tides

and currents sweeping away

my inquiries never to return.

Sitting on a rough beach

I seldom pace anymore,

but often soil my knees with prayer,

wondering increasingly

if the shell of sky and ocean

somehow forms the answer –

me without ears to hear, held up too small

and distant against the eternal,

not a climbing path anywhere

among the flying stars and heaving waves,

these pitched bottles merely

a poor substitute for drowning.

O child of God, facing sea and skyward

distracts you from your inherent solitude.