Surface the action of the day, a means of tracing the dynamic, so that a jitter of blue's sparked by little coals, sun a glimmer of the day's intent. He knows to trace an alphabet written on water is to surface the action of the day, a way of proceeding, entering into the never- to-be repeated, a way of reading a nearly infinite variety of gestures legible only to one versed in surface, the action of the day. When my eye nearly failed —the frail foil-back torn, wild profusion of smoke-curls, what I saw was just this: what he sees on and in water, by his hand the action of surface notated, the rhythm of things discerned and ridden.
Copyright © 2010 by Mark Doty. Used with permission of the author.