Our Lady of the Sea

I crawled into her circle dance
gasped for breath;
and submitted to fate for a season.
Over and over she rolled me
in her aquafingers:
clutch and counter-clutch,
the rolling logic
of her ever crashing surf.

Ruddy infants
are tossed from their mothers’ breasts
to the turtle-scraping retreat
from the hungry, bubbly surf.

The rattle and roll of her logic
and the ever-crashing seasnap
called me home
to my dwelling by the sea.

Fathers huddle
in the deep forest green beyond
the shower of her salty mist;
their chariots have all been abandoned
and their shoestraps rusted-over.

Their enterprises are dust
in the childrens’ eyes
fine morning crumbs:


Cities beyond reach,
highways collapse.
She sends a tremor
down the coastal spine,
the earth quakes,
valleys collapse
she is death.

I came to dwell with her but for a season;
and so I came to live by the sea.
She sends my days down the surf
like an echo in a conch
that murmurs and decays.