By the Shore

"Tell me," I ask the four corners, the bedpost, the lamp,

"What is it I do? My world is among the fields and cattle,

The timber, the dead trees cut and split, now firewood

To keep us warm through cold nights, what do I do 

When my world is not at hand? Who shall I be, if not me?"

The four corners reply in harmony, "reinvent yourself;"

The bedpost says, "be yourself;" the lamp says, "reconcile

Yourself, you will be restless and at a lost for as long as

You are away from home, from work, from the familiar."

Which of these sounds right, none or all? I walk.

I walk down the long hill to the boardwalk, cross the

Trafficky lanes to the sand, walk barefooted to the shore,

Feel the ocean's tug and pull, feel the sand give way,

See the surfers, the gulls, the tankers, the horizon,

Know this is not me, I cannot be this version of me.

I lie on the sand staring into the blue. It is not the blue

Of home, it is paler, it is acrid, it is a poor imitation,

But it will do. The relentless surf pounds the shore,

The relentless gulls bitch and grouse, the surfers never tire.

I cannot reinvent myself, nor be myself. I am simply here.

"Oh, hand me my Stihl and gloves worn thin. Hand me

That splitting axe, that one there, the lighter one—

This is smooth-grained oak, the lighter one will do.

Hand it to me, please, then stand back, watch a man

At work,"—a man by the sea, a little lost, a little wrecked.

—

On the Bus

In this case the illusion is real; reality, well—

That's something else again, it's the snowman

In the globe looking out knowing all the while

The world outside is illusion. It's Plato's shadow,

Heraclitus' river, the magician's assistant.

Somethings just are. You know it when you see it.

Gregor saw it. It's hard to deny six legs.

Two people sit next to one another on the bus,

One is real, the one that gets up and combs

Her hair every morning. What about the other?

What does she do to prove her reality? She combs

The hair of the person she sees in the mirror.

In this case the illusion is real, how could it

Be otherwise? If it were, I wouldn't be writing this.