their shadows trace uncertain linearities
into the tympanic fluttering of sea.
everything is salt-throbbed, the invisible
shipwrecks, the windfaded, dull harvest tones
of oxidation, corrosion. lichens, as though inspired,
restate similar tones, a mimicry across the register, mineral
to vegetable. a boat, cupped as an ear, roosts
above the waves, as the sea asks and asks.
we say : 'to keep going is hard, with no answer.'
but this language has both human and inhuman
listeners, it has fallen on rocks, over and over.
what arrogance to say : 'deaf as a stone'. a coast
of cochlear whorls and folds, such seismic traces
suggest instead a listening in
to instability, on this map the plates of geologic
shell hang, as a pond-skater rests. gulls emerge
from the dawn as messengers, stray signals
from a still burning black, empty and crackling.
they quieten as light flashes landscapes - fleeting,
mirrored - on the sea's meniscus, as the sky is hung
with hawks ascending a different knowledge of air,
below, that ancient heatmap bright with wing-
shivering morsels, a pattern scattered as daylit stars.
waiorua bay, 4.4.2012
waiorua bay, 4.4.2012