1.
What we mean is always on the other side.
Aeneas to Italy, Diocletian
to Dalmatia, endless ferrying, wine, wanderers, words.
2.
It is like that in our town,
trees lacey with new snow,
the sun waiting. The book
lies open on the table,
poem, painted cover, body
leaping in a room, over
the lurking window, light.
3.
We watched it from Venice
stood by the white church
and almost understood.
The sea makes far near,
the sun was coming out,
there is something to be done.
4.
I know it mostly though
from old poetry, Odysseus
chugging up the shore
to his lost found island,
epics and not much evidence
except the waves. The woman
waiting. Did his hands
tremble as he stepped ashore?
5.
Mine did at waking,
mind milky with confused prayers,
there are days like pop songs,
trivial, public, irrelevant
but there they are,
I must learn to endure my mind.
6.
Or what is the other side of prayer,
other of the words
we think we mean we find
ourselves saying? Long
narrow sea, different languages apart.
Speak them for me. Speak me
at least in one.
7.
Or are we there already?
Other side, mother tide,
born over and over?
Forgive me, we means me,
I keep making that mistake
of thinking I am not alone.
8.
But, you’ll answer, some real
you I mean, but one is, you are,
I am, never alone in language.
Open your mouth and you’re in a crowded room.
9.
White church, white surf,
white gull to gloat
over the fish dock
and they say things too
as they gorge on scraps,
little boy I was reading fat books.
10.
So that’s what the sea says
but only if you think about it.
Cross me if you dare,
what you’ll find is just more here,
notice how ill-equipped
you are for swimming my miles,
the other side is just a dream
anyhow, listen to your mind,
you’ll hear weird languages enough.
11.
I must be lonely
if I’m chatting with the sea,
and not even her local currents.
Not lonely, just early
waiting for the day to start
washing up on the shores of sleep.
Wake me at noon
when no one sleeps.
12.
Greece, or Italy.
I never could decide,
we took our law from one,
our logic from the other.
And war from both
on this winter day Slavs
murdering Slavs along
yet another sea, other side
of the other side.
13.
I think of the dying Virgil
sailing back to the heel of Italy
and the long road Rome.
We do not need to kill our enemy,
it is enough to speak clearly once
their secret name, and then a feeling
comes between you, quiet, pale,
a little like an iris, or a lily.