The whole long shore
of cliffs and cuts
my tall ship ran parallel
with the wind.
We saw her billow
in the tide, from land.
The men packed
into longboats - then
I brandished my pistol
and made them go
without me
and I remained
in California.
2.
More birds than needles
on the pines
coves frilled with tule-reeds --
as swells surged in, kelp too
abandoned itself
to the beaches.
Tramping tramping
along yellow hills
trails everywhere
of deer and boar
soon enough
I heard whistling calls
and prayed for generosity
lack of curiosity
other preoccupations than
a ragged limping freeman.
3.
When you sit in the sun
a long while
the ground begins
to move
not like structures
all unstable
but with myriad
small ramblers
spartan ant-lines,
for it is their season,
beetles, and other
divers creatures
on a scale of longing
as great as our own
and some of them take
my blood for dinner.
4.
Stars shot
across the Milky Way
as I lay wrapped
in my coat, forgetting
my hunger.
Then lions came, bobcats,
and men in grass skirts
watched over me.
5.
This trove of nights
brief in time
assuaged my necessity
and lightly one afternoon
in the marsh-glint I fell
from an injury.
Here is how I became
no more. I finished
whatever I came for
and, well-used, eyes open
one boot in the slough
no one but you to tell
pulled the trigger.
6.
Here I come pushing
pushing up
here I come pushing up
from under
breakthrough
breakthrough into light
soil on my cap
again. And rain.
