All Of The New Things
What do we do when the thing we are building gets halted, when the tool we are using is lost, washed away, washed up on someone else’s shore? What do we do when we are the one who stumbles upon someone else’s used to be? Do we start again, finish what others began, let the whole thing get washed over into a flat, clean, new foundation?
I don’t know.
What I do know is that I am the sort of woman who is stopped in her tracks with the beauty and weight of this plastic shovel metaphor; the sort of woman who gets stared at for dropping to her knees to capture this picture; the sort of woman who is letting herself be healed by the holiness of all of the new things.
I spent time the last four days on the shoreline, taking in new scenery and opening up my chest to the inspiration of the ocean. I fell in love with the pelicans, and then the clams, and then began to tear up several times watching the firework joy of children running unencumbered, cocoa-brown tan lines in all directions, little girl ponytails whipped up in salt-wind. I remembered that feeling. I remembered my grandfather talking to everyone, fishing with his socks pulled up so that there would be ghost socks on his skin later that evening. I craved blueberry muffins and Pringles and root beer. Each morning I took a walk to sit and stare and take in. And I also let some things out. Things about the past and things hidden in the future.
It has been a long time. The promise of Christ is that His mercies are new every morning. The ocean, too, starts over, washes and gives the land a new foundation each day. It eats sandcastles and unearths the shells of horseshoe crabs and claims unsupervised hats. But it is tender, giving miles of space and then always returning, slowly, to give back. To give back.
As a child, I would return home with a bucket of shells. Always, the searching and finding was the greater joy, not the setting them out on shelves to admire. The poetry I combed the beach for is no less surprising, oddly-shaped and mismatched than the discarded homes of scallops and crabs I once plucked from the sand. Finding them inside was of greater importance than putting them on display. But they fit nicely in my hands. You can hold them too, if you like
Directions
I come to the shore while the sun is still ascending
like a follow spot in Whitman’s powerful play,
and needing help with my decision
of which direction to choose, I ask the young man
setting out the canvas blue beach chairs
like seats at a party I have not been invited to
umbrellas looking ready to garnish the drink of a giant
who has retired to a simpler life
that does not involve baking children into bread.
When I ask which direction is better to walk
he says either way, then adds, two miles west
will get me to the end of the island.
I walk to where the waves make a lacy ruffle on the sand
wet and dark, like freshly-poured concrete
ready for a foundation, look into the constant water
feel it bubble around my ankles, calves
make love to my knees, then pull back
as though it discovered what I and so many others know
that I am too much to love for long.
As it recedes, I feel my heels the first to give way
still digging in –
and because I cannot bear another thing
that will be lovely, then end
I turn my face toward the sun
walk east
let myself choose, again
the longer way to go.
Child On The Shoreline
I sit waiting for inspiration
which is something like falling in love
she comes with her baby hair
a new thing in the wind
in the sublime, her two years
still sublime herself
prancing, arms thrown wide
head back, radiating joy
she is love
running to love
open to this giant
surrendered to a power
to something that can crush her
but will not.
.
Diagnosis
Seeing a dolphin arc its sculptural body
out of the flat slate ocean
reminds me there is so much more
beneath the surface
ugly and neon gelatinous shapes
seen by cavernous pelicans
who dive and plunk unscathed.
The shore can be graveyard
to the oceanic grave robber.
I stare at a horseshoe crab – all gallop gone –
and the things he carried
still barnacled to his copper armour.
Nearby, two children
hold a single red strawberry
in their new skin hands
and run to their mother
who takes one, and eats.
I cry
because it seems this is how it all began
with fruit, with joy and curiosity –
who could resist a strawberry?
The fields have burst in their ripest season
one flower at a time
green vine to bloodstream
everything dotted with the berry question,
what do we do with the leaves
after we have eaten the fruit?
I will hold the tops in my hands until we know
if this new knowledge will be good or evil.
Adjustments
I have fallen in love with pelican flight
the necklace-string order of ten ruddy bodies
one after the other after the leader, careening them
in straightaways or curvaceous decisions
how I imagine a cognitive line of thought would look
if you could see such a thing.
Their calico wing feathers spread and listen
to the whims and rise of the ocean – the whole thing –
It is sensual to feel so safe, to hold your coast, to rise
and descend without leaving, to become aware
of the changes and reposition your body
in something like prayer, to love
the newness without fear, using your wings
to hold, to not take flight.
