High Tide

Yesterday afternoon, from the front window, I watched a pair of sparrows feeding on the tiny flies, if that’s what they are, in the heavy crop of purslane at the shoreline-edge of the garden. But I think they might also have been eating the purslane itself, because several times one or the other tugged at a leaf with energy and enthusiasm. But only now, after many hours have passed, and with dawn approaching, do I think of the term “salad days.” Green in judgment, cold in blood — yet what I’ve done is what I should, if what I’ve learned is turned to good.

A coastal morning, with clouds from horizon to horizon. I knew it even in the dark, when I first opened the door at four.

July 6, 2019

High Tide

The sound of the freeway
is the surf,

the trucker’s brake
a spouting

whale.

Poems, Slightly Used, July 2, 2009

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