To know only storm is to miss the morning sea

before the rising warmth lifts a breeze;

the same with calm if that is your demand

for then how will you join the wind in all its glory?

The ebb gathers force hour by hour

chasing invisible moon across the sky

while otters wobble down the rock like lumbering dogs

until they slip into the sea with the grace of a fish.

My body slowly leaves me, turning back to elementals

until I reach the new born babe shitting joyfully

with the bright flame of inner self unguarded.

Why cling to what is passing, who I am always returns.

Slowly I stumble down the rocky slope

until the water takes me and I dive.

Something had to change

the inner structure incomplete,

posts are missing, a beam or two,

I seem to be leaning, slipping,

the architect busy with eraser

as so called memories disappear,

the carpenter’s pencil fat

but sharpened like a knife,

timbers take the knife

like trees took the saw,

the forest but a field of corn,

brackets, bolts, a bucket of nails

staged with thought and muscle –

all this effort to construct

a larger room for silence.