~

nestled near the water, a dark blue sky
that conjures Durrell's crystal, that contains
a desire to be set free from the weight of language,
from the shadow found between ideas, words
and the thing itself, while one lone seagull sleeps
near my feet in a round-soft ball beneath
a penetrating sun that sinks through skin and hair
like Dante's heaven, like thundering sails on the bay
that catch the wind in pure white form, while nearby,
a photographer frames a wounded heron with the
constant creak-and-sway of shifting docks
and drifting thoughts, of how Giotto managed to paint
a kiss without desire, his gesture so transcendent
and loving that nothing will be demanded in return,
a flow that slides both ways like sky and paint,
the swishswishswish of a brush against canvas
seeking depths according to one's mistakes in love
and in the lingering smell of linseed and damar
sandwiched inbetween the self and some particular
knowledge that one carries the bottom
close to the heart of the climb
back up