AGADIR

Here.
Where the earth twenty years earlier
swallowed fifteen thousand lives,
she said she could feel the ghosts
late at night on the beach.

They sat huddled together for warmth.

He thought the space had been
impressed for them-
stamped through catastrophe.

Only the most serious listener could hear.

In the morning it would be
the same story in another voice,
a gray tone, rich and immutable,
the sorrowful surf genuflecting under a shroud sky.

The oceans are nature's timepieces.

Here.
the measured history is a wailful remembrance.
Not so much for those who survived,
but to the ocean that felt itself
rearranged with jarring jolts,
deep rumbling screams as it
tore through its design.

Here.
Where the earth had
swallowed fifteen thousand lives,
it is the ocean that whispers
with memory and regret
the warning-
"This too will change."

Only the most serious listener could hear.

Disaster had stopped this steady rhythm.
The rhythm had resumed
and a wiser, more experienced ocean speaks.

Each day the sun strips
away the gray shroud,
each night the ghosts appear,
each morning mourns.

MANIFESTO

Should my spirit soar with singing and careless express itself
or rather to be measured and counted out so as to example good meter?
I had better use of my time than to work slavishly at Precision's bidding
and trust more fully my own heart's praising.
Let me, as Spring, seemingly overnight erupt fully present
And not to men's criticism fear so that eked out cautiously I reveal myself.
Glorious sun I take as my model!
Whose own light heralds it brilliant self.
Outside my window a bird's chorus teaches me nature's love of spontaneity,
and to seek less the good favor of men than my own perfect self in God.

GRACE

Through our unconscious we
even more alive and vital
to a greater working out of
Providence.
Be gentle to your conscious self,
It is most flailing
at the rim of the light
Projected through the cosmic dark,
Grace is there always
in the deep down bottom of your heart.
Your greatest fears
And grandest dreams
Kiss there.
Be there, revealed
And the light of the world
Is your reward
And gift.

Decemebr 7, 1991