IN WHICH THE PHILOSOPHER CONSIDERS THE QUALITY OF TIME WHILE WALKING THE SHORE

                                                                              for jk


This is no ancient mariner, no
clam digger, it's a man with a blackberry

texting from the ocean's rim
among the children with buckets

building castles to ward off the waves'
slow scrawl, scratching glyphs in the sand

with driftwood sticks and seaweed 
flags. It's the issue of being and

time he's considering, the shimmer
and shadow of minnows in the shallows,

the hissing breath as the gentle waves 
recede, it's the scattered path of footprints

fading in the wet sand, the steady
pulse of the slow waves themselves, 

the slow combers unraveling into
foam, how that sailboat anchored offshore

rises and falls, how the amplitude of
dolphins swimming up the coast, diving

and surfacing, their slick gray skin and fins
perfect in the ocean, how the sun overhead

seems to arc across the sky, the faded
gibbous moon sinking in the eat, , and

here below his wet and callused feet 
scrabble over so many shells tumbling

ashore, sand dollars and sea stars battered 
and chipped, the sweet suck and pull of the soft

sand that buries his feet. 



And what of the thoughts of this man, the
dialogue unravelling in his mind

as he scours the shore, where is the record
of his great meditations, his postulates,

his arguments, his inner sanctum, 
his truth? 



You can hear them in the salty hiss,
the skittering legs of the plovers,

the bounce and clang of the harbor buoy,
the fading cries of seagulls -- there is no

"I," no sense of one's self, one's being
nothing remains here beyond these 

measurements, these particulars, the
space between his steps, his fading 

footprints, how the water's foam seems to
sink beneath the sand, and disappear.  

POEM FOR JANUARY 1, 2013

I dropped by that Starbucks on the shore  to 
drink coffee and who should I find there but 
Memory drinking a decaf caramel macchiato 
and nibbling apple crumb cake, he'd gone bald 
since I last saw him, now he wore thick glasses 
and a wrinkled raincoat, like some washed up
philosopher. LIfe hadn't treated him well, he'd 
been reading Levine and fhe next thing 
he knew he was in Shelbyville working 
the Kwik Trip Lotto and hot dog carousel. 
I felt bad, standing there with my Venti 
coffee, my bermuda shorts andf flip flops, 
I'm on vacation, I told him, could I 
join him? He shrugged his shoulders and said what
he always said, "it's a free country, suit 
yourself." There were some awkward moments, there 
always are, I told him I'd made it, I 
manage accounts for a large data processing 
firm (it sounds like I'm on a game show, I laughed,
but that's what we're required to say), I get 
four weeks off a year, can you believe it?, 
I'd quit the booze after the divorce and 
found someone who gives me my space, she's 
just returned from some spa in Taos and, 
hey, wouldn't you know it, I'm writing a novel. 
Well, it's mostly  vignettes, slices of life, 
but I know they'll add up to something.  
It's my chi, Donna says. I asked him what 
he'd been doing with himself all these years 
and he said, well, since the Great Disruption 
he'd lost his house on the gulf, it was just a 
shack, really, but still a shock, now he just 
combs the beach -- really, I comb the beach
looking for anything of value. I collect 
driftwood, I find coins, I study the waves.
You remember that time when we plucked conchs 
from the shore when we were kids? He'd spent a year 
in Petoskey working in a lumberyard 
and living in a trailer under a radio tower.
He'd foud his way to Cairo where he 
planted trees and sold books, he'd given up 
the writing and figured he'd get a houseboat 
and just drift away until he found something 
new. I grew uncomfortable, suddenly, 
thinking of Donna back on the beach 
flinging sea stars into the surf, I've 
got to be going, I said, I fetched sixty
dollars from my pocket and said here, 
get yourself something to eat, maybe at 
that little crab shack up the shore, and then 
I walked off, a little self-conscious, he'd 
lost it, it was sad, even poignant, I 
felt an ache in my ribs, the smell of lilac 
and curried chicken sandwiches and 
words floating in the wind, just out of reach,
but I kept walking into the sunlight 
and the faint sound of the surf hissing,
and the smell of hibiscus and that sweet 
dying of the gulf. This would not be the last 
time we'd meet, I knew, but it would be our 
last together here. I hoped he'd understand 
but knew, of course, that he wouldn't and that
he'd grow to begrudge me in the future, 
as I too would begrudge him.