Island Poem

 

I should quit this quiet shore, uncharted isle
far from any sail that wends from port to port
with only ocean all around. Trees and rocks
too beautiful for commerce, too shy of the brush,
urge these words on me to map each hushed feature.

I've sung the tread of shadows on the sunless side,
measured the tide's leave and take and taken on
a hide of shell to wade into the wild thicket
against the bruise of rocks between the beaches.
and I've lain unclothed in moonlight, still

as breath, and felt as armored as the clamped clam
camped beneath the sand. Its elevations beckon me
to views of the sea, from height like a wrinkled cape
rippling to a wedge of wind levering up the flat-
faced clouds too high to reach without wings.

I should raft my diligence out of this hidden harbor
and rudder into the trade-wind steadily sucking
waves to peopled shores and leave these thankless
chores of noting every mound and rift, each twist
of vine and bend of bough this island holds me to.

A waste of exercise, I plod from edge to edge of it
shaping shelters in the cliffs I do not need for hiding,
diving into pools too deep for my air-loving lungs.
A vain expression in the cluttered woods, I carve
directions to the groves of fruit and crystal springs.

I hold my compass ready and my craft to pitch
on gentle waters or stormy seas; let gales gust,
squalls hammer and waves rock, I don't mind.
I need to watch this green haven sink past the rim
of the wide wet earth and venture my vessel forth.

But some heart of interest bids me linger a season
in the region the rain cleans and the sunlight stalks
with soft paws where a special mystic rhythm lurks
or a theme bathes I've not yet thoroughly delved
when I should shun these haunts I've troubled

inch by inch and puzzled out of simple answers
knotty glens of bristled pine and launch my vine-lashed
raft upon the heaving sea, glistening blue and golden
like a road to the calling dawn, calling me down
to the bay and the day I abandon this isle's embrace.