summer gone

there is a speed at which

the white of water

and hum of the engine

and slaps of cloth on skin

and wide blue sky fold into one.

we began singing when

we believed, somewhere in our guts

that day lunged forward into night

with open arms, that we were howling

with the wolves of every people.

now the words

are gone, a bright sun behind the veil,

crows following seagulls over

the hill. the family sleeps

in sand, books folded over our eyes like years

spent in cities without hearing

the sound of cedars in the wind. we creak

trying to reach the ones we love,

over wine or whiskey,

plans to get together again

or the few shared perspectives,

our mutual practices, done now not

for purpose but effect, keep it a family

business.

the pen leans weary in shadow,

and day yawns with greater

and greater winds, the boats are crawling back

to their oily dens and the tan white men

with their worked on bodies

to their blond wives, and we are staying quiet

while the rocks build rounded edges with each other,

white clouds are born of nothing and release

themselves,

while the clams shrug into the mud

and bubble with contentedness, while

the language of the ocean whirls stories

of which we can only see the sparkling beginnings –

and the building go up and come down

and some men buy while others drown

and some say on the whole you’ve got to admit

it is getting better, but I say

                       

as long as any man is stuck in too shallow water,

as long any, any person is beaten down like a stake into the sand,

I want to jump into the cold, flashing ocean after him,

I want to tear my clothes and run screaming along the beach.

The sand turns salt, the salt

sand. Water evaporates to come down

again in great torrents of rain.

there is a great sense in this world, one deeper

than perhaps we will ever know,

but there is no sense in a person going hungry.