when I am one person,
How can I be one person
when I am the world?
I am on a beach
in Southern California
On the last week in August
and there is no one here.
The volleyball is all net,
the surfers non-existent,
Still the terns refuse
to sit in judgement.
The world turns out to be the same
with me in it or not,
Because I play both sides
of the poles,
My miniature world
at every juncture of the nerves
Sparks the holy wire that does not know
how to be less.
Conflicts are hatched along this front,
wars sprung,
Before the dice that decides
who is who,
But all this ocean promises
is to chill you to the bone of truth
Without revealing why
or, really, what it is,
That is for us to solve,
the specialists
Who flow in tow to where the surfsuds
oscillate wildly
But stay somehow true
to a center where we feel
The place we come from,
The one thing we've forgotten.
