Hymn for Winter Buoys
Hymn for Winter Buoys
by Joan Kwon Glass
Winter opens her mammoth lung against the Earth,
transforms our breath into starry seafoam,
into clouds that disappear before we can touch them.
The ocean, ancient and resilient, thrashes in its sudden,
tender skin of ice and moonlight.
We sing hymns written for sailors in ships lost
or ships returning home, flags torn and faded but
still flying. Mostly unnoticed, the buoy rests as it drifts,
anonymous against the crests, unromantic,
but a sign invented to signal that you have found
your way to good waters.
Magic expands within your gossamer breath
and beneath the waves, a chamberless heart,
anchored to the ocean floor, as lost sailors and a thousand
sea creatures wait for us to remember where we began,
root for us to begin again.
Buoys remind us that good waters can still be found.
Let’s light them up as our communal breath forms
a sparkling sky between us, as the twinkling trees
hold their ground, stoic roots not unlike anchors.
One might mistake a buoy for someone in distress
when really, it is a sign that small things can remain afloat
even in dark times, even when alone in the night,
even when hope is something we must find in one another.
Build me a tree of buoys, breathe into the sky we
have formed just by standing here and exhaling, together.