on a winter evening eyes see furthest 
to a hummock of mist on horizon 

to a kneeling giant    a U-shaped valley 
glacial moraine of gravel & clay   

to a knowing tide    the noise of the flood 
a surge of foam to cover us all 

to shell-sand that slowly accumulates 
in abandoned ridges of lazybeds 

to a broken landscape
exposed rock    avian vectors of birch 

evaporating ocean    a chain of islets 
to meadowsweet softened by drizzle

the fossilized needles of a monkey puzzle 
to coniferous patches of dark 

to a herd of stars coaxed from a river  
a very black thing at the edge of a sward

hazel saplings densely clustered 
fertilizing strips of dried seaweed 

to a rotting wolf in a field of clover 
a hedgerow in winter    the production of dust

to forests cleared of their greatest wood 
archipelagos drowned by the melting of ice 

to a crow on the brink of a cliff without wrinkle
ripples on the surface of a lake 

to an outburst of fish    hundreds of salmon 
a fruitful harbour entered through song

I am taken with the hot animal
of my skin, grateful to swing my limbs

and have them move as I intend, though
my knee, though my shoulder, though something
is torn or tearing. Today, a dozen squid, dead

on the harbor beach: one mostly buried,
one with skin empty as a shell and hollow

feeling, and, though the tentacles look soft,
I do not touch them. I imagine they
were startled to find themselves in the sun.

I imagine the tide simply went out
without them. I imagine they cannot

feel the black flies charting the raised hills
of their eyes. I write my name in the sand:
Donika Kelly. I watch eighteen seagulls

skim the sandbar and lift low in the sky.
I pick up a pebble that looks like a green egg.

To the ditch lily I say I am in love.
To the Jeep parked haphazardly on the narrow
street I am in love. To the roses, white

petals rimmed brown, to the yellow lined
pavement, to the house trimmed in gold I am

in love. I shout with the rough calculus
of walking. Just let me find my way back,
let me move like a tide come in.