Ocean shell

Ocean shell                                                                                        
 
Cup this shell to your ear
and listen to the ocean –
 
its hollow, hushed white noise
somewhere between a silence and a roar.
 
Shell to ear, ear to heart,
this is the silence Baba left
 
(with its intimate roar)
to drown out the world’s bellow,
 
its furor and anguish, 
sham and shallow glamour;
 
the mind’s incessant stream of self.
Cup this ocean shell to your ear
 
and leave the populous shore
for the solitude and intangible promise
 
of the deep high seas, farther out, farther out
towards oblivion and soundless nonexistence.
 
O child of God, ride the ocean waves
until you lose your boundaries in its briny vastness.