Chance = Change

Watcher’s Rock

A good man’s love,
I remember,
Is a stiff, brisk breeze off the ocean:
Bracing but gentle,
Insistent and kind,
Total, inclusive, searching and wild.
Free, trustworthy and
Solid,
Heavy with unexpected gifts.

It’s out there.
Every morning that I look,
Every hour of the day,
It always fools me.
I think it’s a person.
But it’s a rock
Shaped like a person.
It watchers forever
The horizon
For whatever may come.
It always fools me.

Is it a woman?
Is it a man?
Wrapped in a blanket,
Perched on the edge
Of the rocky cay;
Even when I remind myself
That it’s a rock,
I still see it as waiting, watching,
A breathing thing
There to remind me
To be patient,
And watchful,
And just
To wait.

I remember.
Yes,
Now:
I remember.

I wrote that many a year ago, about one of the spectacular rocks sitting outside the windows of the Old Lyme house we used to rent....these weird and wonderful sea birds (cormorants, I think) would sit on this rock and dry their oily wings, and when they stuck their wings way out to the sides of their bodies, they have the look of some sort of weird drawing by Gorey or someone like that....i used to sit and watch these patient resting fliers sit for hours and let the winds blow through soggy wings...beautiful...i was so intrigued by what they looked like I read up on them in my Birds of the Eastern Shore book and found out that part of their nature was to be laden with all sorts of protective oils that kept them warm and tender, and that after a certain length of time, so much water would get trapped in the oily layers that they could not get air-born, so it became routine and necessary to dry out! And i was catching them at one of their favoirte drying out places on that lovely rock near our house.

(In the above photo, that is no bird...it's the wonderful Paul D....and that is the glorious Pacific Ocean....near San Francisco).

I have absolutely no idea what is going on in my life right now....except for the ever-faithful pillars of Peter, Paul, Steve, meditation and home, nothing is as it used to be....and i like it. It sort of freaks me out now and then...my image of my self is shifting daily....but poems are beginning to flow out of me again. And i begin a poetry writing class at The New School soon....now that excites me....oddly...a class....in which i will NOT be the teacher, but the willing and open student...it's been a while since i did that...and , you know what? It's about time!
It's about time.....