Veronica Kornberg

What the Ocean Dreams at Night

            “You are not a drop in the ocean. You are the entire ocean, in a drop.” —Rumi

How can I explain to you that one night
I lay face up on a bench beneath

rivers of stars and forgot about the sea
murmuring below me at the base of the cliff,

only breathed its rhythm,
the earth’s pull, the moon’s lift.

Can I tell you how the sea entered me—
unburdened of purpose, riddled

with travelers and hunters,
shadows and chandeliers spinning in its currents?

Though I am smaller than the smallest speck
in the largeness of galaxies and time,

I held an ocean
inside the cavity of my chest, in the glass vial

of my mind—sea, heaven, earth, porch.
And singing. There was

singing in the deep drifts, I tell you, singing.

Veronica Kornberg is a poet from Northern California. Recipient of the Morton Marcus Poetry Prize, her work has appeared or is forthcoming in numerous journals, including Rattle, Indiana Review, RHINO, New Ohio Review, Plume, Calyx, and Beloit Poetry Journal. Veronica is a Peer Reviewer for Whale Road Review. She is an avid tidepooler and restorative gardener. veronicakornberg.com