Fragments

From where we sit, the waves seem
to insist on shoving everything aside
and always right at our feet, building
a beach out of its bottomless discards:
out of sand, bits of shell and sea glass.

What a beautiful world it constructs
from fragments. What a calm its rumbling
perpetually settles on the jetty stone,
where gulls congregate, their debate ended,
the rake and strafe of dietary budgets.

Farther off, sandpipers advance and retreat
with the ocean’s give and take, a kind of dance.
It makes a music that hums these questions:
when the wind is called home, what name
does it answer to? Does it remove its shoes
when it gets there? And will I ever be invited?

Etched in Bone

There are caverns and gorges beneath the skin,
channels running deep and winding through us.
We become the habits carved into our bones,
whether hammered there by break or blessing—
of watching sunsets or dreading a certain look.
Walking the paths of its valley streams, we speak
what the water speaks, polishing the stones.
We take those words as a kind of scripture, pure
but passing, always passing like the current,
which cuts deeper into the bed, and ensures
our walk will be farther away from the next person
to call out to us, those sounding the geography of us
who follow signs of the heart they can hear
rising in the wind and beating the trees into a panic.

The Shape of Parachutes

Like the dome of certain dahlias
their spacious tent globes the air,
shaping a home for a held breath,
a tipped cup cupping us in hesitant
descent down to earth and the deep
valleys of our beds, the gardens there,
the gentle pillowing of our heads,
with flowers for our sleep, and the trust
we have in dreams, that the fall pardons.

How to Get Home

Sit on a favorite hilltop.
Remain still, long enough
to cast a shadow
where a squirrel stops
to find relief from the heat.
Then continue waiting.
Let your breath follow
where wind goes, escaping
every reason you cling to.
Let your eyes remember
what your heart forgot.
When those memories
return, even the swallows
will find in you a home.

Michael T. Young’s third full-length collection, The Infinite Doctrine of Water, was longlisted for the Julie Suk Award. His previous collections are The Beautiful Moment of Being Lost and Transcriptions of Daylight. He received a Fellowship from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts. His chapbook, Living in the Counterpoint, received the Jean Pedrick Chapbook Award. His poetry has been featured on Verse Daily and The Writer’s Almanac. It has also appeared in numerous journals including Pinyon, Talking River Review, Valparaiso Poetry Review and Vox Populi.  

Image:

Slaunger, CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0, via Wikimedia Commons