open wide

(report from morning in morro bay)

 

we were so early

single car at the universe day

before the bay booned blue glass

and exchanged moon for morning windows

flashing stars away intermittent blindness

the flashes brightened incipient light to shine

and worked fire across the pan of sea

and once

after breakfast

outside a small clear cafe

sentinel seagulls dragging the first hour sound

diving pulsing in cathedral morning

expressing what cannot be said

the immeasurable ecstasy of being here free

afloat in the million mile communal morning

first measured chant where the seagulls strove

we surfaced

at the cool beginnings of light

 

motoring in the morning shine

us, an undefined bright object

cast into the world of seagulls

a single flute as the first vowel

in the first ave maria opens the belly to pray

to sing from hurt and such joy

somewhere the din of those new birds

we drove looking to leave this little civilization

until we ascended the holy mountain

past sound into the signing high pines

 

unannounced

more light above in wilderness

an opening so clear that the timber

of the engine changed

a going toward the sun today

thrust pell-mell sudden bright world

forest flecked as sleep with eyes and dreams

hemispheres colliding in sky

spreading behind us like memory on fire

 

through morning

early bells cadenced

we chanced upon a mission marking the hour

austere tolling so god could hear the

country rise and fall in penance

swelling into the hemisphere apologetically

for the sin of each hour’s want

changing wind and high weather

the tenor and stretch of day like

god’s wild limitless heart

i turned off the radio to listen

until the small highway west

came to rifle through the primeval forest

showed a cool shot into clear ocean

 

left to forest

to settle and bloom

you are sleeping again

your breast almost out your white shirt

your collar fretting

your palm like snow

invite me into your small dream

a collage of blue images perhaps?

do you know the people who greet you?

are you at the tree line watching us motor by?

are you a child in your dream at

the coastal village ahead?

and are there horses?

in the occasional meeting of the roads

does women’s hair stream from the cars?