imagine a field of pink flowers ; a blink of time , and it becomes the rosy tongue of a young boy , stuck out in playful defiance ; a shimmer of time , and , diving into the darkness of the boys throat , there emerges a watery star that hovers in black emptiness , and somewhere on it in another wink of time lies the corpse of a beast which , even as it decomposes , turns into a sea made not of water but of wood , great still sharp crests of wooden waves , tree rings in a widening pool as made by a cast pebble , the fine grain of oak , intricate like the white lace of oceanic foam .