Above the harbor these clouds refuse to be described
except in the language with which they describe themselves.
I stand here in the morning stillness.
Which is of course not a stillness,
the sky spreading open in the East with amber light
while drifting away to the West.
Here I an sense how the world
spins us precisely in its undetectable turn
somehow both towards and away.
The blue of the harbor holds
the sky in its calm gaze.
This is a love poem, be patient.
Between you and me nothing leaves
everything gathers.
I will name for you each wave rolling up on the harbor sand:
this is the first breath of sleep
this the cloth of your mother’s dress
this the cadence of our long conversation
I want to show you how everything
on this harbor has been broken;
shells, glass, rust, bones and rock—
Crushed into this expanse of glittering sand,
immune to ruin, now rocking
in the slow exhale of the tide.
~ from Healing the Divide: Poems of Kindness and Connection
(Green Writers Press 2019)
