I.
Moss traces letters, dates
on gravestones – living flirting
with the dead.
Wind off the sea teases
sea oats – sifting, lifting
heads without bowing or bending.
Decaying rot bunches the wood line,
hedges seizing the runaway leaves,
pierced and flapping until they crack.
II.
Why are we still fighting shadows?
We fear a word, we fear the past,
but it’s already done.
Shadows grow and lengthen,
but light the smallest light.
Watch them shrink – they are no longer real,
yet we grasp, we clasp
them close. Our arms are empty,
why not hold them
open?
III.
The blind man said
people seemed like trees walking.
His gaze smeared, focus lost,
we robbed even that partial sight.
Oceans unscroll to the horizon,
sun rising and resting beyond waves
and curlews and liners – graves here
untroubled beneath schools of fish –
the only darkness, the only silence
unable to shift the seas.
This is when the shadows settle in the deep.
