Against the streetlight great flakes of snow
look like little sheets of paper tumbling
from the midnight sky. I catch several on my glove,
turn them over--blank on both sides. How
am I to continue with messages like these?
As I walk down the street to the ocean,
I think of all that lies buried by the falling snow:
the pile of firewood that never reached the barn,
last summer's carrots still in the garden.
And those harsh words I said tonight about
separation and the loss of love—I see them now,
little irregular lumps. And whatever hopes
you had, my wife, they're out here too, those cold
unweighables, buried deeper and deeper. And the baby,
our son, who follows us around the house, saying,
Be happy—those words are out here someplace.
It's all out here, every key, knife and coin
I ever lost; every domestic ambition, every little
household improvement I've put back on the shelf.
At the ocean's edge black water laps against
a border of ice. White flakes hit the surface
and disappear. I remember one summer a small bird
with red beak and red eyes running along the surf.
When the water retreated, the bird hurried
to the edge, dug a little, then ran back
as the waves returned. I watched it make its way
down the beach, always working that thin line
between sand and water. Sometimes a wave
rushed in too fast, swamping the bird which
then shook itself and continued, and I liked that,
liked how the bird kept to the very edge.
I even thought, that's the work I want for myself;
as if that line were the division between world
and soul—the place where life itself lies hidden.
But tonight I think, isn't it living at the edge
that makes the trouble—never getting comfortable
or taking anything for granted, never trusting anything?
Across the bay, I see the glimmering of house lights,
no bigger or brighter than stars. Are those the cold
lights of reason or the constant glimmerings of fear?
I feel surrounded by messages I don't understand.
Better to let them go and try forgetting, better
to say there are no messages, that those lights
are no more than people reading or watching the TV.
Tomorrow they'll climb from bed at their usual hour,
trudge off to work and the whole mess will continue.
And me too, I'll climb from bed groggy with sleep
and stand at the window scratching my belly.
Far out to sea I may notice a ship or flashing light.
No telling what it's doing or what it means.
In between will be the huge and rising waves
that beat and beat this poor earth, yet leave
no help, nor guidance, no lesson but confusion.
What does the water leave at the wave's edge?
Whatever it leaves, the waves then hammer it down,
bury it deeper and deeper under the sand, as if
the wave's message, like the message of earth
or snow, is simply burial—the brain's message
to memory, the black dirt's message to a corpse.
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