I turned my attention to the water, and I was suddenly struck by the immensity of everything.
“The world is so big,” I said aloud,
more to myself than to him.
He nodded, but I couldn’t shake
the feeling that he just didn’t get what I was saying.
I didn’t mean, “the world is big.”
I wasn’t talking about the vastness of the seas’ endless waters
or the sheer size of the globe we walked on.
I was talking about the infinite
nature of the world, how it was stuffed full
of corners and niches that I would never see.
I imagined all of the homes, filled with love, with shame, with something
in between.
A bee, circumnavigating the area around a wilting tulip.
The involuntary wringing of a grandmother’s hands during tense moments.
A boy practicing violin.
A wedding, a birth, another wedding, a death, a funeral, and the continuation
of life around the hole left by the dead
until the cycle continued so much that the hole was filled.
I imagined the ports where ships docked and ******* between voyages, the cobblestone streets of French towns and the mountainous landscapes of the past.
I pictured dogs, scratching on fences, and a girl
brushing her hair by an open window.
I saw the corners and pockets of life, shared with the world
or kept to oneself. The gaps behind stoves,
the crannies seen only by blind mice and frightened roaches,
the dark tunnels beneath the earth. I saw in a flash the water parks where children played,
the quiet moments of morning coffee reveled in by morning people
who rose before the sun.
I pictured the greasy back-alley of a fast food joint
and realized that, for better or for worse,
I would never see
even a fraction
of what the world had to offer.