I had wondered

in the spirit of the Romantic poets who championed writing from the perspective of I
had wondered whether time has in fact
let me be?

it used to fret me in the utmost
the relentless passage of time
encompasses 
in its relentless wave, moving slowly
over the sand bank of the earth
whirling up crustacean shells and seaweed strands
its oppressive salt
drowning forgone possibilities

I had wondered where I should
find them all, in all this ocean
all the caves of treasure
the sunken myths
Atlantis, Ys
the old worlds
the forgotten worlds
in an infinitude of blue
the glittering stories waiting
for the intrepid and the worthy 

I had wondered how to swim there 
so to escape time itself –
to find expanse beyond my wit
and have it be my dancing ground
swimming patterns in fathomless space
languorous eddying buoyed by confounding momentum

I had wondered how it would feel
to be the first life, the only life, the last life
moving alone in interminable blue
alone, with the soft memory of sun long deceased
this stillness only the universe
this irrevocable ultimate
I had wondered whether
I should swim forever in the unconscious void
or swimming so
disappear

I had wondered whether it were not better
to be left in peace
so I might disappear in my own ways
to move beyond the rough chop of the shore
into the calm a half-mile out
where silence warns where danger swims
and time moves quiet
and slow

I have half found myself now here
I float,
simply.