past past the image
above the waves, sound of waves
a voice voice speaking

Adapted from the poem, The Sound of Waves by William Carlos Williams in the The Collected Later Poems of William Carlos Williams (1950).
A quatrain? Is that
the end I envision?
Rather the pace
which travel chooses.
Female? Rather the end
of giving and receiving
—of love: love surmounted
is the incentive.
Hardly. The incentive
is nothing surmounted,
the challenge lying
elsewhere.
No end but among words
looking to the past,
plaintive and unschooled,
wanting a discipline
But wanting
more than discipline
a rock to blow upon
as a mist blows
or rain is driven
against some
headland jutting into
a sea – with small boats
perhaps riding under it
while the men fish
there, words blowing in
taking the shape of stone
. . . . .
Past that, past the image:
a voice!
out of the mist
above the waves and
the sound of waves, a
voice . speaking!