Rising from the deep

...It took both my hands to turn the wheel
Light cut the door; I put my weight to it
and took a small step down into the world
that was identical and wholly other.

When they ask me what I saw, they all expect
Some blissed-out excuse for my not saying,
but I know what I saw: I saw in everything
the germ and genius of its own ascent,

The fire of its increase; I saw the earth
put forth the trees, like a woman her dark hair;
I saw the sun's sun and the river's river,
I saw the whole abundant overflow;

I saw my own mind surge into the world
and close it all inside one human tear;
I saw how every man-made thing will turn
its lonely face up to us like a child's;

I saw that time is love, and time requires
of everything its full expenditure
that love might be conserved; and the I saw
that love is not what we mean by the word.

For some idea of it, choose a point
in the middle of a waterfall, and stare
for as long as you can stand. Now look around
see how every rock and tree flows upwards?

So the whole world blooms continually
within its true and hidden element,
a sea, a beautiful and lucid sea
through which it pilots, rising without end.

-- from Bathysphere by Don Paterson