Circumnavigate the island with its complex relation to continents.
Its history of wanting to hold.
Its tendency to fog.

In the middle of the island another island: ocean, island, fens, island.
In the ocean, long bodies of fish that aren’t fish.
Eels came into the fens and were eaten and ate what they could,
and the people walked through the fens on stilts or small islands.

Regulation first by knowledge then by tariff.
In the middle of the island century jellying is introduced.

Salt water flows from it.
The island is a flower that smells like rotting fish, waiting to bloom.

One hand after another, that’s reclamation.
In the dark monastic silent halls made of three-foot-thick stone blocks.
Under which and from which invisible, sensible drops fall
building the floor several centimeters, irregularly, each year.

The value of the eel.
The value of the monk.

Ancient currency of the island the curlicues of body and hand.

We called it a way of avoiding drowning.
This went on for several generations, walking above water
and the damp singing of celibates in the fog.