In That The Sea Embraces Everything Here from where the tide receded hours ago, the sand is bare and coarsely kneaded as cookie dough. A kid treks by with a fishing pole and bucket, whaler’s hat quaint—the sky is nothing but charcoal, it’s so cloudy that though umbrellas shake Gordian tassels above, behind a few last wave-raked lumps of castles, I’m resigned to no sun today: which isn’t half bad upon a thought— I’m not here to play, God knows, nor for a laugh, nor to get caught up dreaming I’m free: I’m here, really, to face all that’s been lost on me—alone—the sea the only place it could have gone.
Dream My bleared and skeptic eyes refuse to close—then do— and now I realize what can’t be true is true. Eyes fuse to close, then do. I see a green lagoon. What can’t be true is true: music under the moon. A sea, a green lagoon. I hear the pips and toots of music under the moon: pipes and penny flutes. I hear the pips and toots here where you cannot be: pipes and penny flutes, and you, you here with me, here where you cannot be: a ceaseless, windless lull, and you, you here with me.— The tide rides in at full, the ceaseless, windless lull is singing, and I realize the tide rides in—at full— my bleared and skeptic eyes.
Terence Culleton has published three collections of formally crafted narrative and lyric poems, A Communion of Saints (2011) and Eternal Life (2015), both with Anaphora Literary Press, and a collection of fifty-four English sonnets, A Tree and Gone, just out through Future Cycle Press. A Tree and Gone is available at https://amzn.to/3qDrRqN or through his website, terenceculletonpoetry.com, where you can also purchase his other books, read his blogs on poetry, and keep up with his breathlessly exciting life as a writer.
Grand Little Things 