My father held a conch shell
to my ear, said: Listen — here.

We were home, I think,
nowhere near the sea, but the whoosh and quiet roar
I heard put me squarely there.

Was it blood I heard?
My own salt tides, surging with each well-timed
push —

or air, swirling in and out through spirals
of a golden mean?

All I knew was this:

the conch made something small seem vast,
and something vast
seem small.

since we moved here
I pass it every day:

a small blue plastic-covered book
in the crook
of an olive tree,
left maybe
by one house construction worker.

The pages weathered
by months
of revolution and recession,
pandemic, nitrate explosion —

by way
of days and nights,
storms and sun.

Now warped, discolored, chalked,
the text in Arabic compact,

Bible or Quran —
the olive tree doesn’t wonder.

Fishpond this morning —
a petalled star of cream and canary.

Exuberant unfolding
while the band of small koi is still

and hidden. Under rock in algae shadow,
still unsure of spring.