Here on Nature’s Island, I talk with the sea
repeating my frequent concerns. 

I worry because the vertical 
is tilting to the horizontal, erasing 

every height—every assurance
for the shores I’ve known.

So, I ask the sea, “Should fear overcome
all love and life when erasure becomes everything—

and change is all there is 
to living?”

I can see the world going flat. All the plentitude of love
and life becoming smooth.

“Beware! Beware!” My fear is screaming, 
“There is no future proof.

No vertical protection anywhere!”
“Stop,” I cry. “I want to be positive.”

Today is my time to welcome what may come—
should I not give voice to Life’s changing ways?

I must ask the question to be constructive—for
I am alive.	 I am!	Alive to trust

in you Oh Mighty Sea
to ask me gently, “What is life? What is love?”

And here is my answer: “Love and life are all that is kind and dear
when time becomes a blue eclipse.”

And to my answer the sea is a silent ripple.
                        

Our lives are ruled by two prescriptions
in mortal time:  our blood pulsing red 
and the blue wrung sighs of familiar breathing 
that keep us longing for each hour’s spark 
thrown at tyranny and culmination.

We rise to ignite—to create—to love
no matter the cost as the Fates 
cast us born to time 
and nature’s air
measured for the tyrant’s sum 
by green-shaded eyes off somewhere 
coldly watching all lovers and sinners 
exhausting life—never wasting tears 
for the disappointments earned 
in the counting. 

Oh, by the Fates, our counting keeps us wrung.
The counting makes us raw!

And time thus drives 
our whelming flood
as we breathe until we crack 
the last domain
of temporal things—yes, the last pulse 
of life at our breaking 		 cut off from time
and joy and pain—unmade 
of breath, unmade of blood.