ceaseless oceans 2

Something ends where the reeds grow sunset.

Starting in pale white clouds of snow,

they brown and shoot dark

raising themselves into shades of red,

then burnt orange and yellow

culminating in almost invisible tips

pointing into the ice blue water.

I am a flea in the fur of the earth

Bristling and waving stiffly in the oceanic breath.

Within reach, purple berries of the cedar

Cluster like crystals in the rock,

Hustling themselves deep in the olive green leaves.

I will make a house like this shadow grove.

When I climb out again to see the bay,

Boots crunching into the prints of deer

And mixing with the coyote,

I am face to face with two swans,

Muscled necks U’ing to fix their eyes on me,

scabbed feet swiftly paddling them forward.

Nothing sounds except their heavy breathing

Through the nose, close to their eyes,

As if some congested giant had thrown their heads

From too little clay.

We would have an unpleasant fight, my numbed limbs

Sluggish and encumbered, their winter-hewn beaks

Accustomed to violence. I imagine

the taste of their blood, thick, metallic.

I go closer.

They stare and stare, somehow warm in the half-frozen

Water. The ducks cackle in my ear.

A cold wind blows and there is the hum

And thump of small birds taking flight.

All the while it grows darker and neither i

Nor the swans will give of our temporary territory.

This is the way of winter.

There is no better life to be lived than this.

Find a way to survive.

Some fly away, others stay

and weather the season.

Everything gives way though.

There is no resisting what you must give up.

Even the geese as they fly

Make small noises with each wingstroke

If you listen carefully, their bodies stretched

To make organs with the wind

Against a burning sky.

This is to be paid attention to.

I worship what is in us that survives,

That wants us to-- the hot muscle

Of fascination, the deep sensual pleasure

Of the thing that we are and the world we experience

Splitting, reforming and combining

Like the half fresh watered bay

Forming sheets of ice along the shore

That at some point, without you noticing it,

Give way to the tender grace of the ocean.