David J. Rothman The Rock
Not far, but far enough away to make
The beach look like a strip of chrome,
Far enough so that the noisy break
Quiets behind its round, green back of foam,
Suspicious crabs retreat across the rock.
Some tense then hunker down in weeds to wait,
Only their stem-end eyes above the grass,
Prepared to flash their little claws at fate
If it comes clawing. Others jump. Hours pass.
The ebb tide also ebbs the world's cheap talk.Hot, sharp, pocked granite cuts the softer foot.
Pointless, random, free, each tidal pool
Holds its small world all temporarily put,
Each creature living by its wet salt rule.
The plastic kayak bobs in the lee's shelter.
One surge-washed cleft cuts through the rock's deep center,
The long, slow work of washing winds and tides.
Blind barnacles extend their clustering welter.
A black, spiked sea anemone abides
In a fortress hollow where no tooth can enter.Not I. I drift back gently in the sun,
First down the surging channel through the rock,
Its sloshing peace not mine, then home in one
Long swell after another, carrying talk
Back on itself. For no word is a rock.
And no one lives alone upon a rock,
Too small, too hard, too harsh and unforgiving
Even to make a bed on, let alone a living.
Ocean, paddle, wind, boat, rock—the word
Can only come to rest where songs are heard.Would it were otherwise but it is not.
So back I go, sun dropping, as I must,
To song and all our other natural failures.