ebb and flow, ebb and flow
goes the endless thwip-thwap
of waves against the shoreline.
snowfields empty into mountain streams
empty into rivers
empty into bays
empty into oceans
emptying into the end of all things.
losing sight of the horizon
at the ends of the earth.
grasping at clouds.
confused by compass points
and lost. but deliciously
the sweet bewilderment
of the fall. the vertiginous
descent. the skyborne
downward diving. the plummet
the plunging osprey
talons taking trout and raking silver scales.
Calypso in the kelp forest.
see the sea urchins and little
doors hidden in the tidal pools.
the ever-emptying,
the ever-shifting of shells.
the cards games played in the parlor of god’s apartment.
the ochre crushed to dust and dampened
and smeared across your forearms,
the painting of your flesh
in Earth flesh. the memory
of your passage told in spanish moss and driftwood.
old photos recreated by fireflies and fleur de lis.
artifacts preserved and passed down in dixie cups and daisy chains.
bits of crab and clean water.
wind-carved furrows in the face of the beachhead.
behemoth old cedars bleached bone-white.
roots of a sitka spruce creep across a cleft in a cliff.
the tree of life
flowering in the gap, just
blooming in the big, open air.
Here, under the Sun.
Here, under cloud and rain,
encircled by wind spirits
encircled by all the waters
of all the world.