How what we love defines us

Laguna

The flag snagged on a jacaranda tree
just where the children’s tower
cuts a place for itself in blue
ocean swirls at the ankle
contained for a moment by the crumbling sea wall
festooned with purple seastars
and waving urchins. We have placed ourselves
in this bright bracelet they may call home.

Can we learn the language spoken in this garden?
Translate the sighs of mussels clinging to stones for all they’re worth,
or green anemones whose languid tentacles reach through water-bent light?
The eyes they don’t need bequeathed to other creatures,
they are all foam and salt, the steady
wave washing over with everything they need.
They are patient.
Waiting for bright fish who find themselves captive
to the sudden mouth singing.

The sea mirrors the sky, violet dyes sailors who knot and unknot
stranded in sand to the tune of the sinking sun, wait for
the blaze to ignite some dormant urge, just before drowning in a far horizon. Salt tingles the lips and tongues of those who dove beneath
breaking surf this afternoon--who tightened their lids against the sting
to thrill in the tumble of the wave moving them,
moving towards them all this time from Rangoon and Auckland-they coast on phonemes like blue glass from Bali.

It’s the spaces between the waves that draw me.
Before each singular note breaks and shimmers, the rest.
I abandon interpretation to the casual pelicans glide ,
the trio of spouts where slick dolphins rise like a descant,
breaking the mirror into a thousand shards of light.


(Forgot to post this poem when written on
4-13-08)