Ten billion bits per second,
ocean surf our retinas sense.
Rapid fire
fills a million optic nerves.
They can’t accept the flood.
Imagine, Imax shoreline,
yet only from ten feet.
Nerves select, transmit
six million of ten billion bits
each second, borne rapidly to our brain
each time our focus shifts:
seaweed, shell, round rolling rock.
Next cortex’ narrow channel
lets pass a slender stream.
Ten thousand bits remain.
Now only these stream on.
This fleeting second in the mind,
the final hundred
bits per second pool,
represent the finest point,
the floating bubble,
grain of sand,
gull wing feather’s tip,
out of all that’s on the shore.
One point the mind sees
crystal clear;
all else pale, periphery
in mottled hues perceived,
the details indistinct.
Focus here four seconds:
your hand is indistinct.
Now focus on your hand.
Not only sight defines our shore.
Each instant, partial second,
pleasant thought and ocean’s pebbled floor,
hot sun, and voices beckon.
Each precise alone, once sensed
collect within our mind.
All else that finest moment
muted not forgotten.
Flashing instants focused in our mind
recreate the sea and shore.
Streaming grains define our world
as mind around them
melds mosaic
polished visions,
vague
pieces with no edge.
