Within the Wave

WITHIN the hollow wave there lies a world,
Gleaming glass-perfect, rising to be hurled
Into a thousand fragments on the sand,
Driven by tide’s inexorable hand.
Now in the instant while disaster towers,
I glimpse a land more beautiful than ours;
Another sky, more lapis lazuli,
Lit by unsetting suns; another sea,
By no horizons bound; another shore,
Glistening with shells I never saw before.
Smooth mirror of the present, poised between
The crest’s “becoming” and the foam’s “has been” —
How luminous the landscape seen across
The crystal lens of an impending loss!