Encountering your net, at once
I realize it circumscribes
the water whose limits
I could not see, vague
eddies of obstruction
made present in each strand.

How I envy you
the  gift of speech,
the slow articulation
of each knot!

Entrapped in admiration
I explore this mirror
you have set for me.
One mesh for each scale.
Is this what I look like?

And those dark currents
that promised a terrifying
liberation? The brief swirls
of water as a solid force
that made me doubt
my boundaries, swept me
like pre-echoes from the bottom
breaking open, towards the delirium
where all distinctions are transformed
and one may swim
forever? Were they only
your net's motion?

                                   for Todd Gitlin
                                    after reading his paper
                                   on the future of the Movement

27 July 71