To float in the river is to merge in the sea

Sailen Routray

Remnant of one common earth ball fungus
https://commons.wikimedia.org/Dominicus Johannes Bergsma

My home is the wide, open sea. 
I am this clod of earth.
But I am more water than clay. 
My true home is the wide, open sea. 

All around me people roam
thinking that they are clods of earth.
Some have been told otherwise. 
Many of them don’t believe.

Some of them do.
But they sit on the banks of this river or that stream,
afraid of the sweet lilt of the waters. 
Some jump in;
some drown and float,
drown and then float again, for good,
trailing towards the wide, open sea;
some slow, some fast,
depending upon the flow of the stream
and the lightness of their beings.

I have toyed with this stream 
or that river, for ages.
Now I have jumped into one;
I float. 

The sea is far away.
And I am heavy.
But I know 
that this stream is fast.
Even if it takes aeons 
to reach the wide, open sea,
it’s fine.

There is a joy in this floating.
To float in the river is to merge in the sea.  

Note: This poem was first published in the blog "Chiragh Dilli" with the title "Talking Places," as part of a "poetic conversation" between Samprati Pani and I.