Birthday Letters from the Sea
To the waves he spoke little.
He preferred listening to them,
to their incessant conversations,
sometimes soothing, as though
old friends were recounting
parables from the lives
of the saints; other times
querulous, like lovers
cheated out of their hearts.
In his house, he softened
his footsteps, not to perturb
this unconscious communion.
Every year, on his birthday,
there was a letter spewed
by the sea: the ink, washed out,
congratulated the renewal
of silence.
Encyclopaedia Vanitatum 