on the road of someone else’s purpose


on the road of someone else’s purpose
I shudder to a stop 

the night sky clear
as last time I was here

the same startling silence    
same chill       near frost         sudden

glint of starlings sunk in moonlit
snow





Soul


in the dream I was blind
and out of the darkness
you emerged
spirit and substance
psyche 
and form   :   : 

standing seagulls face the wind
sometimes
they balance
on one foot         the other
tucked
into a feathered belly  :   :  

in the dream
you promised to stay     even after
I woke up      tell me
how many gulls
inhabit the beach in a lifetime





Black Pearl 


black pearls are not black at all

aqua and deep green      glint of violet--
as if they stole their colors

from the wings
of a starling lit by the moon         my love

is truly not a love he      is a black pearl





Ducks:  An Epilogue 


Only a poet would write about ducks,
see them for their duck-ness, feathers on the water, 
little boats with blue-green flags sailing off,
or coming on to shore with a waddle or a limp.

I sat on my beach, a fine day in May. 
I could not write, or rather would not, given all 
the drivel that I knew would claim my hand.
Then came the ducks, who stood and stared at me 
as still as ancient stone.  Move I said, silently of course, 
not wanting to disturb their sacred aura.  
Move.  Come to me.  If you do you are most 
certainly ambassadors of God.

They budged neither feather nor an inch 
no matter how intensely I returned their gaze.
It then became clear, they had come to test my faith.
I walked back home more humble than I'd been  
in a long time.  Before I went inside, 
I looked back to see, like four vagrant thoughts, 
the ducks had followed me.

It's a funny life, you know.
And stranger when you think of what will move us.