I go there often,
\nbut I cannot write of it.
\nThe Bay with its gray face,
\nthe trolling swells of the waves,
\nthe islands like moored ships,
\nmy father, grizzled and gray
\nat the tiller of the Whistle Wing,
\nthe great white wings of the boat
\nfilling with dampness,
\nthe fog spilling from the sails.
\nIt is soul life, this place.
\nWhy I refuse to give it up,
\nwhy it exists,
\nan exotica,
\nthe real bread,
\nthe clear tea,
\nthe lemon sun.<\/p>\n
All of it belongs to me
\nlike an inward skeleton.
\nIt holds me together
\nlike the beams of a bridge.
\nI found openness in the bay,
\nthe rare elemental of truth,
\nalways being what it was.
\nIt was later in the city
\nthat I found depredation,
\nblankness, fragility.
\nPeople who never walked
\nwith the spirit of the water,
\nwho never tasted the tongues of ancestors,
\nthrew wreathes upon the waves,
\nfelt no tenderness in the arms of devotion.
\nThe reeds parting for the gulls,
\nthe lilies lying like pink and white baskets
\non the pools.<\/p>\n
One belongs to these doors
\nthat open on shadows,
\nthat release the whispers of angels,
\nthat pull a man into the heart
\nof the living savannas of midges,
\ndragonflies,
\nthe bonnets of herons and swans.
\nI don\u2019t know why truth is rare
\namong the people of the city.
\nI don\u2019t know why they need sirens.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t know why they refuse
\nto leave those places
\nand return to selves
\nwhich were the gift of their childhoods.
\nI for one return to my place,
\nmy Bay,
\nthe islands,
\nthe ship of my father,
\nand wish for nothing but the sun,
\nto rise and light up these dark places
\nI have gone to.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I go there often, but I cannot write of it. The Bay with its gray face, the trolling swells of the waves, the islands like…<\/p>\n