Message

I did not make these words. I copied
each slow curve, each letter-form
traced on the shore at night
when no one was looking.

I mimicked the calligraphy
beneath the bark of rotting logs,
the track of insects
as they gnawed, digesting trees,
turning them into language.

I read the cirrus dance,
the languid pace fish keep
as they suspend themselves
like jewels in this lagoon,
the lunatic dragonfly skywriting,
fossil shells printed in stone.

I set them down as spellbound
as the child who scrapes
a new word on the blackboard.

Look, I put my message in this bottle.
It is written in a language
I have yet to learn.