THE PACIFIC
(for Matt)
at the horizon where sky and ocean meet
no boat or island the pure curved seam
a conjoining of the elemental and infinite
I breathe it boundlessly for the first time
at the horizon where sky and ocean meet
I'm scoured clean simplified opened out
everything false and puny stripped away
the spirit starts shouting: Yes! Yes! Yes!
at the horizon where sky and ocean meet
to be obliterated is to be reborn to know
nothing the quintessence of all wisdom
dwindling ever smaller I vanish into Joy
***
Last summer I visited my son Matt in L.A., and we spent much time on the shore of The Pacific Ocean. This was only my second time encountering The Pacific--but in spirit, really my first. This time I absorbed the experience through every pore, and the above poem is one result. Another was a drawing I did a few months later, titled "My Pacific."
SPELLBINDER
low full and dusky in the east tonight
ancient spellbinder you compel my eyes
seducing my heart even though I realize
you're just a barren cratered ball of stone
but that's only one of your countless guises
another--intimate companion of my soul
we talk when there's nobody else to listen
what passes between us I'll never reveal
before oceans filled or mountains thrust up
you were there when glaciers first froze
your shining glittered across their crevasses
shamans conjured your oracles--entranced!
this night it's just you me and the cosmos
beyond loving and loss death and grieving
I drink deep from your well of what endures
time/Eternity meet in our communion now
***
The moon and I always have had a special bond. Most nights I look up to check where she is, whether waxing or waning, new or full. On this particular night there was a harvest moon, riding "low full and dusky in the east..." I was awed by her beauty, and felt an intimate communion between us.
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