Wednesday, June 29, 2016

Manzanita sutra

(Manzanita, Oregon 10/15/09)   

        But who could know if I’m a traitor?
        Time’s the revelator

            Gillian Welch


once upon an ocean’s bruise purple bruise
orange sundown clouds racing darkness east above
an incoming tide’s worry-stone, 2 by 4, shattered crab shell
freight, this stuff no longer what it seems in the least—actual
photographic prints swirling in bridal white foam the image of that
September tea rose reflected in a rip tide, a cherry tree
riddled with cedar waxwings caught in undertow as water
pulls back west, my hand immersed in it a moment—I told you
stories eddying with loss & you standing in a yellow windbreaker
in October an uncertain smile as terns darted, such a confusion of
broken promises a starfish on wet sand a house sinking a single
tanker riding the earth’s curve close to the vanishing point: if
I say I return & return to that single moment when the ocean’s
crash drowned out your laughter & the sun died golden across

                                 those thousands of miles & breakers & swells it’s
another untruth I utter as always as today’s dark river surges
                                 west with no mercy & nothing left behind

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