There is a secret I have hidden
Deep within:
I have said all the things
Like, I prefer the warm weather,
And, thank goodness for the lack
Of change in seasons,
And, all things considered, I am happy with my life.
But in my quietest moments,
New England, New York, I cry out to you.
. . .
The sea, if you watch it for a while,
Can go on and on until the next land
Which may as well be forever away.
But
I have watched the sea,
I have watched the seasons,
The drastic shift which makes a heart ache
and a soul cry,
And the strange man waving at me here
In front of a Baptist church,
Makes me think to myself,
He is lonely, that person.
And sometimes, I understand.
Don't you see? It is all of one fabric,
The fibers of these thoughts
and this one event:
A song of missing.
A song of sad.
A song of poems not yet written:
I have seen many places
And known many kinds of things
And people,
Maybe hundreds of thousands of
Seagulls have flocked above me
Or perched in front of me a few feet
and cocked their heads, waiting
in the bitter salt air for an answer
Of what to do next:
Stand still, decoratively,
Or fly away, familiarly panicked,
Looking for the next new old thing
To land on and sigh.
What things do they remember?
How many things have they known and seen?
What's it like for none of it to matter
more than the smooth course of one's beak,
of one's perching?
The wind does not whip here
like it once whipped, there; the work is not
as back-breaking; or, perhaps we are
not as dramatic about it, not nearly enough.
For a yard of snow to land on one's doorstep
is a greeting from beyond, to
places we cannot as easily see or touch
as the gull, the wind, or a prayer.
Would you no also cry out for this
if you left it? If it found a way and left you?
© erika simone haines 2016-17
