On a dugout drifting down a lonely creek
evening is neither leaving nor becoming,
the sun merely sunning
its draft of light
Along the shore, the turrids lie broken;
washed up sounds still
speak of water
Spirals uncoil, dormant voices call
join land to ocean, lost in the rise
and fall: hope and bits of polyp
toss
and yearn, turned
by the tide, that lungs
and lips, corals
and branches—
Collapses
and fills
the inner ear
of the urchin orb
Giant clams
slowly open
and close, mouth
tranquil flow
Beached veins of the blue-
bottle jellyfish still drift,
stinging there is
life after all this
The shale and shingle sits
and shifts, split by itself—it comes
and goes, suns
and sings of one motion
Water draws in
and out, lifts and lulls,
rolls onwards
and uncurls like rhythm
building breaking con-
tinuing this landscape
and language
of breath
