Song of the Sea

by Steve King

© 2012

All rights reserved

calling,

crowning breakers crawl

gathering their weight of starlight,

each unfurling wake

unfolding

far

across

the

sound,

again                       

again                       

again            

come from nothing I may see,

pushing inward

from the black thin edge

where sea does rise, sky does fall—

where long night has gathered all,

starlight and sea,

meeting far from laboring landbound eyes

that are tied to other heavy horizons.

From far, the flaring breakers now,

to end here at my feet;

wakes spent upon sudden shallows,

stumbling to their finish,

broken on the waiting shore,

splayed upon ancient sands,

empty now of stars,

draining back upon the black.

Live things,

the breakers stalk each jetty,

fill the empty coves,

make smooth ancient ground,

and bright the muddled world:

sand, seaweed, fossils, shells,

papers, cigarettes, drained bottles,

now strange in starlight,

attendant relics to the water’s touch.

I wait on the waters,

knowing every measure of this beach,

knowing where the tides will ease,

lingering just out of reach,

watching each clinging wave recede.

Yet for all the things I know,

the calls remain as new,

each one a different note

another (again)

and another (again)

                  and always (again)

singing the old song to me, this sea,

true airs the winds will pass along,

but lyric for no idle voice.

The tide slides beneath empty boats.

Music rises, slips

in an unwritten rhythm,

stout ropes stretching to a groan,

old hulls grinding on rusted piers.

Sleek gulls rustle on shiny rocks.

A string of sagging summer banners

yields to risen winds,

ripples as they pass,

wind given voice

by everything it touches,

breathes a name, complete,

upon all things that lay beneath.

Singing Thalatta,

mistress to great wanderers

who rode the undulating surge

for love or plunder or oblivion,

death, joy, or…some things else:

something gathered upward in the gales,

or reckoned for them from below…

I’m thinking there are no adventures left,

no unknown passages,

no seas empty of keel or sail,

no pristine surge unchecked.

Not a current’s worth of mystery these long days,

and such a small horizon left to breach.

…thinking there are no adventures left…

But the song,

and the dark mother strains

that I may hear—

my small adventures are not for her,

nor the selfish prayers of such a one.

And she sings…

“This tide does welcome all the world,

your highest things will be made low;

your leavings shall be gathered here,

from earth or air or fire claimed.

Monuments that, immortal, stand,

and miracles wrought by your hands,

will some day yield to my caress

and become one with all things else

that I reclaim from distant shores.

Your glories and your scattered shames

will merge with those of ages past;

your brightest song and blackest curse

will harmonize my choruses.

And ages hence will come a day

when all that’s locked in my dark hold

shall find a life in some new surge

and travel on to its new shore.

And may it be that someone waits

to watch each wake as she unfolds,

and see the stars lit in her tow

as all these things do gather o’er:

Another world, one new and bright,

then to await the tides once more.”

Her swells are pooling at my feet

while I am lost in listening.

My spirit shrinks from the touch:

Is she reaping?

Or bestowing back?

Maybe both it is.

From the town, a clock tower tolls,

music, too, upon the night.

It counts a moment,

then the echo dies

and time is lost again forever,

save for my dark measure

again

again

again…

I am no ageless watcher,

fit to gauge strange times

or balance karmic ebbs and flows.

I know only this water—now,

hear that water song;

and as its chorus flows to me,

I watch her shining imprint

spread upon the shore;

but only for the moment.

She slips back upon the edge,

starlight waiting where she gathers there;

and all the dark murmurs meld their refrains,

so she may sometime sing to me again.

Wanderer

by Steve King

© 2011

All rights reserved

At once aware.

Wakening in dawnless wood.

Last flicker of a sinking moon.

Oh, he would have the sun,

but he would have his dreaming too.

Slow to move;

his unknown beckoned

through the in-between:

first touch of new light

settling like mist,

lent form, hung fragile,

clung to all still things,

enfolded slow each birthing hue,

threw fleeing scenes upon the air

framed in the very least of shadows,

forged in them the shapes of the old things,

desires worn nigh transparent

with his labored overuse,

shapes that must elude hard day,

stubborn reflections building a dark tide —

destinies too easily foregone,

the weight of ancient condemnations,

ties that bound him to old sins,

fires that branded once eager souls,

loves, unmeasured and unmet,

present now vaguely in regret;

all the old stories

too often told to be completely true,

yet true enough to give life to his dreams.

So sleep at last withdrew,

flew, to lie among more docile shades.

Silence gathered to him,

left a moment’s grace,

then cracked into the prelude of a voice,

summoning piece by piece

all that would stir,

all that awaited and might await,

aware or unaware,

seen or felt or conjured,

held or held apart,

all the one instant.

All one in dawning wood.

Birds rustled amid arid leaves;

stoic rocks gave voice to the waters,

winds rose to bend each pliant bough

across its neighbor;

rough music, tuneless and anarchic,

eternal measures out of time,

unsensed harmony

hymning of old hardships

and a coming bitter season.

“—If there were only stillness,

here would be a ready home…”

He might close his eyes,

imagine other worlds…

Or he might sing anew

the story of his age,

bend old themes

to fit the strange new times…

Or he might just move on

and let old spirits guide.

He might surrender,

again and again

to the pull of that stubborn tide…

But…

the clouds would show his way,

winds call his tune,

though none to echo a hero’s name.

Had he incense or belief

he would stoke a coal,

appease a ready god.

For all he knew an empire waited

beyond the edges of his ruined map,

a place beyond the gravity

of storied griefs,

imagined victories,

and dreamy memory silhouettes;

a place where land and sea and sky and he

would join in perfect peace,

and render true all sacrifice.

But, alas, no gods:

there would be no blessing for his ease.

He might summon only fate,

and that, his own.

Already in the waiting hour

has he set his chart,

away, perhaps, from old spirits

and anchoring memories.

Perhaps away.

Abandoned in his step were the ruins,

forgotten, as he strode, all victory songs.

Already to his path

the twists and turns

that plagued his ancient line.

Already the wanderer

--his banner an old shadow

that ever stretched before--

set out upon the odyssey;

already, the old sojourner,

adrift again upon his stony shore.

Word

by Steve King

© 2011

All rights reserved

Words might come, sudden,

like summer lightning,

night already settled

too quiet for your ease.

Or find you as you wonder

at some new-found mood

intruding hard

in that instant

before sense takes its chance

to parse new questions

of trial and distinction,

aversion or desire.

Sudden, to outrace

the throes of their inception

and the occult context

of well-hidden thoughts.

Come sudden emergent

from a trove of dark perplexity

otherwise unknown:

a shadow flashed before you,

holding captive all your seeing;

tracing out the arc

of a dark epic gathered at large,

you a small part,

you, minor in the telling,

mute, awkward,

waiting in the crowded wings.

The word,

unfamiliar,

unwarranted,

unwilled;

soon to straddle

some tamer level of convention;

still middling strange,

even as it’s newness fades.

Word;

you take large happiness

when it satisfies

to tell of your small things;

grateful when you think you might control it;

believing you might use a word

to shield you from your terrors.

Imagining a difference

between words and summer lightning.