Roundtable

An old salt
               sits staring out
                                             at the sea
A wind sways the palms
                                              infrequently
Another day prepares
                                    for heat and silence
A small plane
     buzzing like a fly
                                             disturbs the sky
The air eats it

Far out on the slumbering sea
                         a trawler creeps along
The wind from the south
               blows the bait in the fish’s mouth
The yawning sea
                         swallows the trawler
The lichen lives on
               in its volcanic stone
                                             taciturn
                                                       eternal
                         awaiting its turn
                                   in the turn of the sun
Never will I return here
     never again
                         breathe this wind
                                   on this far run
                         in the reaches of morning
               where the sea whispers
                                             patience and salt
The sun
     scorches the sky
                         and drops like a burnt-out match
                                                                                     into night
And I am an animal still
               perhaps once a bird
                                   a halcyon
               who makes its nest at sea
     on my little flight across
                         the little chart
                                             of my existence
Life goes on
                         full of silence and clamor
     in the grey cities
                                   in the far bourgs
                         in the white cities by the sea
     where I go on
                                   writing my life
                                             in neither blood nor wine
I still await an epiphany
     by the petri-dish of the sea
               where all life began
                                   by swimming
But it’s time now
     to give an accounting of everything
                         an explanation of everything
               such as
                         why there is darkness at night
Everywhere the sea is rising
     (Flood tide and the heron’s haunted cry!)
               Am I to be drowned
                                   with the rest of them
               all the animals of earth
                         washed away in ocean
                                             motherer and moitherer
     in this tremendous moment
                                             of wondrous sea-change
               as our little world disappears
                         in a tremor of ocean and fear
                                   to the murmur
                         of the middle mind of America
     as imbeciles in neckties
                                   drop from the trees?
No matter then
               if I end up
                         in a house of insurgents
               on the Avenida de los Insurgentes
                                   or shoeless on Boston Common
     or cast-up clueless
               in my great Uncle Désir’s
                                                            beach hut
                                                       in St. Thomas
Pardon my conduct then
     if I can’t give you
                                   any final word—
                         a final unified theory of existence—
                                   all thought subsumed
                                                       in one great thought
                                                                                     (utopian vision!)
Humans with all their voices
     as myriad as
               the syllables of the sea
     have never been able to fathom
                                                       man’s fate
     nor tell us why we are here
Still will we be
     free as the sea
                         to be nothing but
                              our own shadow selves
beach bums all after all
     in future time when
          nations no longer exist
               and the earth is swept
                         by ethnic hordes
                              in search of food and shelter?
Neither patient nor placid
               in the face of all this
                    in the sea of every day
                         with its two tides
I drift about
     immune to hidden reefs or harbors
Someone throws me
               crystal fruits
                              in the shape of life-preservers
Others wave
     from distant strands
                                   Goodbye! Goodbye!
Beached at last
                              bleached out
     I would to the woods again
                              with its ancient trees
                                   that sing like sitars
                                                       in the wind
                                                                       Wordless ragas!
Shipwrecked ashore
                         at the mercy of avaricious gulls—
And yet and yet
                                   we are still not born for despair
Spring comes anyway
And a gay excursion train appears
The ancient conductor
     with stove-pipe hat
                         and gold pocketwatch
                              greets us like long-lost passengers
     gracing us with
               wreathes around our necks
     as arms of lovers
                         insanely embrace us
Is there anything more to be said
     before they carry us off
                                                       as dead
     while we’re still dreaming
still in search
                              of the bread of the word
                                             cast upon the waters
the dough that rises
               in the yeast of speech
                         in the written word
                                                            in poetry
Tracks upon the sand!
     left by corraled bands of animals
               cornered by mistakes and habitudes
                    and trains taken
                         to mistaken destinations
               or trips taken or not taken
                              with angels of love
                                   to lower latitudes
Between two waves
                         the ocean is still—
                                   a silence of ages
                         lasting but a moment
                                   between two waves
                                             of emotion
     as lovers
                         turn to each other
     or away
                              Love ebbs and flows
                                        comes and goes
                                   between two emotions
                         yet surges again
                                             with each new wave
          as some sea-creature from the deep
                                   breaks the surface with a leap
The sea roars but says no more
O the yarns it could spin
               if it would
                              between its rages
     under the eye of the sun
                         under the ear of the sky—
Cities asunder!
                              Plunderers and pieces of eight!
          Petrified hulls!
                                   Crystal skulls!
     Sailors’ masturbations!
               or yesterday’s sperm
                                   lost in the wake
                                                       of a pleasure boat
O endless the inchoate
               incoherent narrative—Voyager, pass on!
We are not our fathers
                         yet we carry on
                                   breathing like them
                                             loving and killing like them
Away then away
                         in our custom-built catamarans
          over the hills of ocean
     to where Atlantis
                              still rides the tides
     or where that magic mountain
                                             not on any map
                                                       wreathed in radiance
                                                                                          still hides