Paumanok Reeds Book

Cricket Poem

He was out painting
The fish shape. The reeds,
Came as thoughts
In a sleepless
Night. He was writing
It down

On the cold kitchen table.
A scent here
A touch here
Mother and death, here
The sea, here
Touch touch, here here

Tally was--
It whispered the Mother
The Night
The Death and the Sea
Whispered and repeated
The Beauty in the order

It was in the red rusted reeds,
A disposition-- flown,
Of season and light
Cycling
From the moments passing--
Revolved and around

The stars-- blazed in the shadows
If you saw them
What made him
He was,
And the stroke
Thought and hatch

And over hatch
Was his word
Saying it
Silence, the Shh,
In the rustling, in the not there
Those glimpses

The wind whipped,
Diamonded surface,
The pink tint
Invigorating-- returning
The walk back
Inhaling breath

Then exhale, of relief.
Back in the car, turning the key
Going home,
on the winding road

Watching for deer.