Sandpipers
In a whole life that goes
on beyond us, sandpipers
reckless and impeccable
skim the mist in a careless geometry
above the burbling clams and the Dionysian
feast of the gulls on the rust-red husks of crabs.
Each consecrated carapace
pulverized and luminous
makes a boardwalk of the shattered, a
glimmering carpet on which we shine:
Our lives, neither tragic nor mundane. Our bones entangled.
Our hearts persistent. The faith of kites above us.
The kitschy-kitschy of sea glass. Corpus
green with nutrients and dissolution.
Sea
tawdry, sea songs, life at the edge of the world. The cobalt
outline of tide from the window’s ledge.
The swing where I cried when grief finally broke. The
sand-song of mopeds and dogs on the salt-dank air.
It is here always where I recall the imperative.
Where I re-learn the lesson of my divine
irrelevance. Where I receive full clemency, where there is
only fervor for my blemished soul, where there is room for nothing
but the grand helpless lungs of the sea, the sandpipers
free on the brine of its draft, all things found and all forgotten.
--Kristen McHenry
3 comments:
Exquisitely worded and incredibly descriptive poem!
It's such a treat to get a McHenry poem again!
"impeccable" cuts so many ways: such a joy! They are always very kempt and orderly looking, something of the fussy elderly Frenchman, comme il faut, about them. (But they do nevertheless peck). (But, on the other other hand, they are incapable of sin, or would that be impeccant?). And "reckless and impeccable" catches in its sound so wonderfully their frenetic dashes just ahead of the wave.
And then there's "free on the brine of its draft," which, good Lord, so beautifully apt. You are just magnificent. Rob a bank, quit your damn job, and write poems all day. Please?
Don't tempt me, Dale. :) But seriously, thank you.
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