Estuary 

spread on the mud of the flats

of the wide estuary

marked, like wormtrails in the wood of the sea,

by once streams of the water

checked by the tide’s shift

and the heat of the sun,

with one will,

both stranding scores of bowed lakes

to seep into the mud.

The ridges left behind

will firm and stiffen

into the map of a brain

You sink under thought

into still and pure mind,

far from action or will.

You are always near.

The question returns in small pools:

when will you cover me again?