The
Water Poet
- Greg Hall
When I forget
the white-brown sandpiper at the sea’s edge,
the grey gull
flapped by wind,
your songs
return them to me.
You insist on
woman and wave and the moon’s pull
—despite
history, despoilment,
bitter
heartedness.
We have not
loved you well,
mistaking your
hard-won gifts for something
we might make
on the cheap.
Why should you
continue among us,
who act as if
we don’t need
you anymore?
We are starved
for song. Come.
Endure the
vanity
of our
self-congratulatory notices.
Maybe you are
greater
than Neruda.
Your words are no less
beautiful. Did he
wait for the
tide to bring love as solace?
Did he want
for pleasure, or companion?
And still you
hope, still you believe
in woman and
water.
You return to
the crows with green glittering
eyes, hunched
in the pines of rocky Nepenthe.
They are the
people who await you,
read you,
follow you.
It is
odd. And that we failed you.
And don’t say
again, after your death
we may know
you. Come now.