Please do not wait for me.
\nLet me,
\nwith my sand and pail,
\nerect a wall against the sea.
\nLet my legs,
\nwith their blue porcelain veins
\nstretch out on the sand.
\nBuild up dikes
\nlike the trailing of snakes
\nstretching in the sun,
\nand the sun in turn,
\nbleaching my hair
\ninto the petals of a flower.<\/p>\n
I am home,
\nby the cat lake of my people,
\nby the gray swells of their old dreams.
\nI woke up here.
\nI was born in the foam.
\nEvery atom of my soul
\ncontains a grain of its sand,
\nthe open ache of my heart,
\nthe lost swarm of its flies,
\nthe swallowtail resolve of old warriors,
\nlost fishermen,
\nyoung mothers.
\nThey join me on this beach,
\nthey live in its light,
\nand walk as shadows down the shore.<\/p>\n
This is my home.
\nLet me stay awhile.
\nGo on,
\nand tell the world
\nI will catch up.
\nAnd if I don\u2019t,
\nyou\u2019ll see a white gull above the water
\nswooping and arching in the breeze,
\nand it will be me.
\nI couldn\u2019t leave.
\nI couldn\u2019t die.
\nI simply became
\nthe child of my home again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Please do not wait for me. Let me, with my sand and pail, erect a wall against the sea. Let my legs, with their blue…<\/p>\n