The Nautilus (from "The Island")

Yes I remember
it was sometime in the deepest
and the darkest of my days
the weary light by his shadow
that gently, so gently fell upon me
had I not searched
would he have found
had I not given
would he never have sent
for the sea, to me
and the sky, between us
hidden in the chamber
of a fragile nautilus
in the chamber
a faint light
a signal !
... it sits now
by the window
gathering the dust of dawn
in a place where I have been
where I must, ultimately
return
as my heart heals
of the remembrance of our
senseless fervour
a feverish madness that struck he
and I
a moment without distance
just a moment
such a marvelous moment
... and I showed, proudly
to the wind, to the world
what I had found
... until
that strange shining juncture
that sobriety
that robs us of our liminal existence
oh! how he strikes away the idolatry
of my name
from his repertoire of grace!
oh! how I thoughtlessly deny
my own desires
such pert, such defiance!
yes, such is sob-riety ...
sob--riety ...
that which brings us to-our-senses
senses we struggle, daily against
to keep afloat, half alive
the numbness we cherish
that shields our fragile hearts
whence now yet another
weary veil of sweetness
I must be without
I must be only
with its memory
the comfort of equivocation
the refuge of spirituality
a dispassionate philosophy
of Peace
neither heaven nor hell
to learn to weigh
against the darkness
to tempt away the hope
of another life
oh! smugly
to return
to the business of the day
and to admire without desire
the magnificent shape
of the nautilus
beneath the gathering
of dust