Sea Pool

Here in this vessel of warmed brine, to bathe
and float myself into serenity.
An ibis forages at eye-level
close-by, leaves off to practise stillness as if
waiting for life's next gift to manifest,
intimate with this place, moment: sluiced rocks,
tailfeather-ruffling wind, solstice sun.
Set in a Venetian mask of dark pronged bill
and head: obsidian eyes. Off-white plumage,
unbeautiful till its hidden life
fans into myth — a sculptured fugue ripples
above the coastline, a cloak of power worn
as simply as stillness, put by again
for more probings in cracks of sea-scarred basalt.