I am not sad to come back.
The inner world gives me bones—
they form themselves in silence,
they ask no questions.
They dance, they have patience.
They measure the round in years.

When I come back from the bones,
the pure fish the moves in the wind
and that has no desire;
when I come back from the pulse,
from the breath, from the belly
that delights in itself;
when I come back I am not sad.

One by one I entered the world. The circle
of the world. My friends,
my enemies, all the streams
that needed my weight
to fall inward once again
the falls I became
poised over nothing.

This is why there is no sadness
when I come back, I come back
to this: my friends and I hold hands
in a circle. There was music,
we hurt one another,
our bones called need, our fears
danced before our eyes,
our sex hardened, there was no more water calling
only salt
on salt.

This is why there is no sadness.
I lick your tears,
your salt writes our names on my tongue,
our rings of salt mean forever.
Ashes cover nothing, sadness is not,
even the salt turns inward
and falls through the sunlight.
They say, oh, the salt, the sea,
but no, it is not that, not happiness,
not sadness.