Harness (Nov. 2004)

When did these elements
stop hounding me, and,
like some Actaeon in reverse,
befriend and prow my course?
Perhaps a heart must
is schooled to proper ends
by their darker woods.
Surely I entered them
aching for release
and welcome, not
surrender: The fleeing
quarry so curved
and dapple, focusing
my eyes on a hot
liquidity that made my
ever burning arrow
leap like hounds
from their quiver.
Gale and storm-surge
surely master every
pale pink shore, but
such uses always
drown their makers,
I mean those who
presume to write
their own names
on wind and wild water.
For no matter how
big the pulse of sky
or sea arousing in
my loins, no night
was ever long enough
to reach what I thought
I saw ahead, what I
needed far more than
any beach or bed
could bless. And
the endless fleet
of stricken boats
I captained on nights
long ago, each collapsing
on the rocks offshore,
my cries flying up to God
as I careened on down
a blueblackening, godless ire.
Wind and wave, I've learned,
have no masters, none
at least we can mortally
presume. I am just two to
three sheets of paper folded
so to fly or float whither
their own high/deep augments
will. Each morning I
harness this white writing
chair to wet so windy hooves
with every intent of finding
you upon the next pale shore,
though I'm equally as sure
I'll not find you there
or anywhere these coursers
deem to ferry me.
Wind and wave are
harnessed not to the
man but his making,
and race not toward
his heart but its breaking.
There she is altared
and survives whatever
names I tide on in
on ever-falling sand.
See: the hourglass
is empty and another
poem's been loosed
with news of my old welcome
which you'll find on that
shore I'll never reach.
Unfold and read it
like a letter from the heart
you left behind that
night so many years ago.
These words are carried
to you on that wind and
wave in which you'll always find
the sweet and bitter traces
of my ever grateful smile.