Tornado Watch

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take what you want i bowed to the sea

but kindly take just what you need


i need it all said the ravenous sea

you must understand i've the storm to please


very well then i said an old ache in my heart

why should you be different than me

Shells

pewter gray the day and soaked with the sound of corrosion

the easterly wind cold and unrelenting off the disorganized swells

not a shell on the beach worth picking up and no one has called

bored by my own small thoughts and somehow unable to read

i walk again the wide hard beach no such thing as into the wind

wind in my left ear for a mile and a half then wind in my right

tells me some things like i'm still who i was four decades ago

still alert to astonishment but better acquainted with the night

with more words in my head which i've learned not to flaunt

with more need in my heart which i'll never admit

and there's more i won't say

i've learned to expect betrayal

oh but what colors under my feet

the shattered shells

                                               

Easterly

foam slipping west on a skin of saltwater

held back from the sea by the wind

petrols in pairs all angles and slant

all effortless speed and then gone

the sound of the sea

the sibilant churn and the vowel

sing me the sea let me hear it

no rhythm at all from the east

no meter or rhyme in this sea

but the heave and grind of the surf

but the salt and the madness of we

Rain on the Bar

rain runs down the panes in waves

beyond from where clouds touch the sea

waves run in toward the dunes

licking their lips with white tongues

days on the bar are a notch in the flow

a nick in the time that runs away

a place of clean lines and raw weather

miles up the beach from where the road ends

and only wind and love and gravity can find me

where only the roll of the earth

and the swing of the moon can reach me

give me your secret          i'll become it

say you and i will find our way

both of us arriving here in the extraordinary present

in the nick of time

—with two lines by Dan Chiasson

Yielding

giving in to the influence of wind and tides

with faith in the natural course of things

even as it overtakes us

Uncommon Senses

inlander

barefoot on sunstruck sand

you know what you must do

for the sake of her

the wind off the water carries the cold of the sea

As if the Sea Had Been Stilled

ceaselessly folding     the sea

to be beside it as comforting

as to lie in the breath of a sleeping child

except the sea never stops

that quiet          that empty

The Cycle Unintended

violets white join the yellow the blue

the woods fills up with gleaming youth

newborn down on leaf and stem

while in the fields of longing men

mistakes of love unfurl again

Vision

American beech

The rain knows when, moves in,

The wind shifts to a colder source.

Through air smudged with mist,

I see the clearest:

When men are the least to be seen,

I am most myself.

The sky will deepen, the trees

Will lift their hands and stand their ground

Around me, like family.

Creature of Light

shine down now

before the canopy closes


what happens in the mind

is our only reality