Hymn for Winter Buoys

by Joan Kwon Glass

Winter opens her mammoth lung against the Earth,

transforms our breath into starry seafoam,

into clouds that disappear before we can touch them.

The ocean, ancient and resilient, thrashes in its sudden,

tender skin of ice and moonlight.

We sing hymns written for sailors in ships lost

or ships returning home, flags torn and faded but

still flying. Mostly unnoticed, the buoy rests as it drifts,

anonymous against the crests, unromantic,

but a sign invented to signal that you have found

your way to good waters.

Magic expands within your gossamer breath

and beneath the waves, a chamberless heart,

anchored to the ocean floor, as lost sailors and a thousand

sea creatures wait for us to remember where we began,

root for us to begin again.

Buoys remind us that good waters can still be found.

Let’s light them up as our communal breath forms

a sparkling sky between us, as the twinkling trees

hold their ground, stoic roots not unlike anchors.

One might mistake a buoy for someone in distress

when really, it is a sign that small things can remain afloat

even in dark times, even when alone in the night,

even when hope is something we must find in one another.

Build me a tree of buoys, breathe into the sky we

have formed just by standing here and exhaling, together.