The masque of indifference
passed
and gulls
of indistinct provenance
appeared
To welcome me from chains.
O world as wet bird
there are so many worms
I have missed
Watching the crows and captious
sparrows
smooth out the turf
with black eyes,
Scarce aware of my size,
hiding in the thickest
blind,
Content with merely listening
to what could not go forth
without me
as free as it appeared
And gaining sustenance
from the spring I'd
never see.
It was a stolen image in my mind
all that time,
stopped like the clock in a classic car
right two times a day.
The people cawed
how I talked to birds
as if that was
the error,
Never hearing what I heard,
the sirens of the world beyond
the protection of Circe
Weaving a rip curl
that kept me adrift
off my island.
There are magical spells
for a Caliban
once he's left behind
what is dear,
As an equal of the wind
and of the albatross,
who pass through as if
he's invisible,
For no longer something to hate,
to self-immolate
in conspicuous display
on the black sand that touches the sea
and empties away.
Death is the comfort
in the oak overhead,
the eyes on the branch
too foreboding
as they go on
forever
in the lips that hold them
floating ...
All I have known
became nothing
as I watched them go ...
The place beyond the sea,
I don't have to
know it now.
What is separate
doesn't need to be
matched
in my soul.
The sand through my fingers
is to sift and fall,
the hawk to guard my call.
There is a breathing
unknown before,
more than silence.
