Harboring Spirits

Beyond

It is a space within silence— like a great window holding the ancestry of light and cause, from which light enters with its shadow, not yet light, but the essence of light or the gift of nameless things, their presence, something more or less than thought. Outside and within, yet sometimes caught with the casual eye—ghostly, uncertain, yet incontrovertible.

It is the light that reveals a breast, the forehead and cheek in the shadowy dark; the lover’s touch, a kiss barely meeting the lips; the touch of a hand unseen, the touch of a tongue awakening the delicate juices. A listening, always the listening for what might come from where distance is only a beginning.

Gathering Driftwood

—Yachats, Oregon

Various motions of the seascaped afternoon: sun striking away the clouds above the level blue, the air ringing with clarity, spume of waves against the rocks, the shore littered with great trunks of trees and knotted roots, bones from another life bleaching into sheer forms. This time a serpent’s head with its fierce knowledge; a seal shape that swam to shore like the living animal; the figure of a woman reclining, as though waiting for a lover to arouse her to more of what she is and one like nothing familiar. Perhaps a spirit harbors here, waiting to speak its syllable: The sea has a heart of fire. I am a child of the sea.

So they have gone down to death and risen from the dreaming depths: pieces of driftwood—offerings from the foam—evocations—images.

Gift Horse

You have to look it in the mouth: that’s where the story lies.

You didn’t know the horse had wings? Neither did the horse, young and frisky as it was, careering in all directions.

It had to come to know the earth— suckling toward its strength and the thunder of hooves.

Then, joined with the rider, the wildness of the ride— the ecstasy of danger.

As for the wings, don’t even ask. The life of each day is the dawn of speech.

Orphic

It does not partake of this world, nor yet the next: this slipping away of occasions, this wrenching of bonds— as from a ship gone under, the random and disconnected bits of a life bobbing to the surface. Scattered efforts to remember what moored our days together.

What’s left? The unmet moment— a passing through a spider’s web. Passion turns over an empty bowl: absence in an eye too dim to reflect the glowing image back. Some part of the self slips into forgetfulness as you elude me. We speak of the past, bring it back to fill the void with shadows.

II

Orpheus, we’re stuck with you, trying to bring back the dead. And do they mirror our longing? You could have kicked yourself for that turn of the head—to make sure.

No wonder the god gave you a second chance, knowing the odds. Double or nothing—double the loss as you wept yourself into song, the keening a music you were made to put your lyre to. Now just pick up any guitar. We’ve got blues enough for you to sing electric from all the stations.