Is, Is Not

A brief reverie while sitting at the edge
of the Pacific below Sky House,
admiring the filigree maps of wave-froth
inside the curvature as it rolls
forward, then deposits its overlay
of surrendered continents and ocean
partings into the ebb left
only moments before. Loss without
sadness! I take my restorative
like a shoreline whose surety
is always: something is coming!

* * *

Bird splat on the Belfast hotel
window. Then suddenly a red brush
from two stories down among beer barrels
rises like a hydra-headed dragon
to spit a spiral of courtship water
from its center. Its mating dance, like
some near-extinct bird, scrapes
the sky free of its detritus. Up and
down it prances on the tight rod
of its mission until I see better
the brick on brick my secret room
is up against. Who says
nothing works here?

* * *

“Pat Higgins, the Major, died right
there,” Josie says, pointing to air
at the side of the road on the valley
edge. “Between one step and
the next. He was a great character,
fond of his pint, a great worker. He’d
see what there was to do and do
it without orders. He was popular.”

They pray for him yet on their way
to Highwood mass, and take a blessing
for themselves at the spot where he
fell between two steps: live step, dead
step. The invisible place marked in
an invisible forever in their on-beating
hearts. Living step, dying step. Memory
step, no