to the loons

To the loons who live on lake kezar

Out there, in the brush of water and sky

you glide, just out there on evening’s purple.

Beyond the dock, you call in elegy

a sonorous om which keeps you burnished.

In the deep hours I’d sneak past the guard,

wade through forming dew to the grey sleeping

snapshot of your home. I’d swallow my breath

and listen for you, step out of my clothes

into the water, softly diffusing

myself into the rippling darkness.

My strokes in night, natural as your long hues;

seeking communion with those indistinct

                                                                        blacks and blues.

God’s hand cups your calls and lets them fall like

                                                                        paint drops

but I emerge, dripping blues from nude limbs

                                                                        the whole way home