The tide throws itself over the land
so suddenly that we call it storm,
as if a thing were simply its cause.
Thunder shakes our bones like dank justice
as bright veins of lighting search out
their evidence. Something stands accused,
and I, having forgotten how to pray,
can only hope that the clouds will break
somewhere above the Atlantic.
Elsewhere, unseen, ships really bob
idly upon the water. Sailors really
gaze out over a constant field of crushed
sapphire and remember the unbearably
flowering land; people who wake, suddenly and confused,
in restless rooms, from dreaming mouthfuls of sand,
and whose dreams travel outward,
like dark waves beneath angry skies, until something
stops them.
When the storm recedes briefly, I travel along
the rain-washed path until I am alone
on the hill, alone with the dumb waves.
We delude ourselves with the siren,
with this beast that calls irresistibly
in an iridescent, scaly voice from out there.
But a crime has occurred here on earth.
The elder maple tree in the yard
insists that it is growing, steadily, but all I ever see
is obeisance to the slick, trunk-cracking wind.
No, I think, you cannot scare me with
the pirate’s saber, nor the thick drowning kiss.
But there is something,
as the cool presaging wind rakes the grass,
that cannot be endured. The first drops fall
for a second time, and
I try to imagine peace the colour blue;
yes, the sea, I can tell, is angry,
even if it knows not why.
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