Charles F. Thielman – Ⅳ

Beach Cabin, Notebook 

 

 

 

Cyclops pupil rising

to birth a rough beast,

November dawn, the view

of the horizon liquefied by rip-tides.

 

He’s here collecting a liquid sequence

of nonce words, transfiguring experience,

absorbing the silence of trees shaped

by ocean winds amid the hiss

of wave and undertow.

 

The calligraphies of night rain gust-blown

through high beams now dissolved

to dawn-hued driftwood. Redwood roots

reach high inside salt spray, wave clap

on hard dark sand, the seventh wave

lumbers in carrying wood, stone.

 

All his living by complacent hesitation

has written the names of the stillborn

on sails of wave, driftwood shadow

on wet sand, vision weighted

with coin. Sky

pierced by gull cry,

the sun sparks across a line of agates.

 

The blue doors of his heart slowly open, this fourth dawn,

as if they were windows on new hinges, pen on page

pulling the voice through porous stone,

the seventh wave lumbers in.