03 January 2014

spectacles

no binoculars, no camera.
but my bifocals
are on -
a set of lenses for the page
and another set
for the pewter bay.

teals and shovelers
at the close edge -
colors nearly visible
with these slight aids -
a flicker of green head,
a trace of rufous breast,
in this dry shroud of mist.

like years ago
peering
into a stand of doug fir -
the surface
of my eye
as dividing as
glass

and how it seems
one can slip
from the embodied world
as simply as a bird
dips beneath
the sea.

with relative ease the
rings of saturn can
be seen -
i've seen tahoe and the outer banks -
as clear as a map -
through the window of a plane -
the aurora borealis
and the copper queen mine.

    and the tide keeps coming in

the tide is coming in or the
the tide is going out and
you finally learn to see
through your own
set of
faults.

under this laurel
on the grassy shore - the bay
indistinct from sky,
teal's movement defines space
and where we are is alive.