Pilgrim Heights

Something, something, the heart here 

Misses, something it knows it needs 

Unable to bless—the wind passes; 

A swifter shadow sweeps the reeds, 

The heart a colder contrast brushes.



So this fool, face-forward, belly 

Pressed among the rushes, plays out 

His pulse to the dune’s long slant 

Down from blue to bluer element, 

The bold encompassing drink of air



And namelessness, a length compound

Of want and oneness the shore’s mumbling 

Distantly tells—something a wing’s 

Dry pivot stresses, carved 

Through barrens of stillness and glare:



The naked close of light in light,

Light’s spare embrace of blade and tremor 

Stealing the generous eye’s plunder 

Like a breathing banished from the lung’s 

Fever, lost in parenthetic air.



Raiding these nude recesses, the hawk 

Resumes his yielding balance, his shadow 

Swims the field, the sands beyond, 

The narrow edges fed out to light, 

To the sea’s eternal licking monochrome.



The foolish hip, the elbow bruise

Upright from the dampening mat, 

The twisted grasses turn, unthatch, 

Light-headed blood renews its stammer—

Apart, below, the dazed eye catches



A darkened figure abruptly measured 

Where folding breakers lay their whites; 

The heart from its height starts downward, 

Swum in that perfect pleasure 

It knows it needs, unable to bless.