The Singing Shell

The sun lays its head on my shoulder,
I drive down the freeway. The sky
was not pink as you remember it,
nor the fire of it a bloody orange or red,
and the smoking drifts did not curl like twine.
Boats did not rise nor sails catch the heaven.
It was not anything you could imagine
nor anything named.

Without definition sky opens her book
and tells you a thing about your life.
Tenderness you miss. Where the eagles
will be when you can't see them. Where
you are, what kind of a mystery, and it's gone.
The vibration does not tremble the ear,
you can not imagine this; something remembered
from before you were alive. A drawing
on the Sail Maker's table. That spacious feeling
just before you sleep.

The sun glances away, and when you turn your face
the shadow wraps you up. Have you seen the opal moon
gleaming and wide, suspended voyager, cold light?
A childhood promise, a new shoe. The sailor's dream.
Container of all poems and romantic thought, wish-bearer,
your singing shell. There it is in the thick round sky,
a black sea surrounding its beautiful loneliness.



for longing