‘A luminous star, of the same density of Earth, and whose diameter should be two hundred and fifty times larger than that of the Sun would not in consequence of its attraction, allow any of its rays to arrive at us; it is therefore possible that the largest luminous bodies in the universe may, through this cause, be invisible.’

Pierre-Simon Laplace, 1798

I take the sea into my eyes and flush air back out to the tide and I am miniscule on this precipes, tiny and alone. There is a sun in the sky, the only sun I know, and I wonder whether this sun has seen the one I am looking for.

I have a vision in my head that this other being, miniscule and perhaps too alone, would stop in a barren expanse of field or snow and ask; where is the light so vivid and soundless and yet, so invisible and loud? Where is the being that would fall and increase in the very way that music weaves its tide-like yearnings within me?

As time turns over and my legs, heavy with my weight, grow weary, I notice patterns in the way in which the sea waves and how those fishermen warm the water with their presence. Floating over the cold, throwing nets out and reeling in, the friction of movement heating the deep. And how at times these waves are so callous to the children who paddle and fall in the shallows. The watch, on my wrist, that once granule by granule counted down the hours, has now stopped and can no longer count day into night.

Have I so much time to stand and wait? As I give the abyss my patience and presence, as I inform the lovers of when high tide will rise.

I dare the sea, so ferociously, to cover me. To unlock itself from sand and urgently, so harrowingly, crash over these dunes. And swell behind me to the concrete, and behind that the houses, and behind those the stores, and behind stores the farms, and washing cows into the cities, drown the lanes with salt. Pour over this whole and show me the inside.

But the sea is tied, ruthless as it may be, tied to the motion of being what it can only be.