Yesterday the sea
was louder than my mind,
Its madness of no words
in pearl clefts' stillness surging
To land's grey ends, the seeds of sand,
mounds gathered for veiled burials.
The overwhelming sound, that strips out
raucous children, the masticating gulls,
A man on fire with summer's rough desire...
all tossed like shells in madcapped froth
Brought in by the blue stranger, who churns to
other chimes than these we knock around,
The gourds we have collected, from a giving
spendthrift tide.
Today
The furnace spits. This thing too small to be,
the mind, rises like a reddened thumb,
Engorges on our brutal flaws, too much to bless
when we must do the blessing for ourselves,
The way we are, imbued with all the dust
of pilgrimage, the waiting water
For our healing too indifferent, too like God,
for what's left when we clean the grit
And watch it go like hats of defunct sports teams,
mirrored glasses, lucky stones?
How much that we could lose that isn't there.
