He gave out what was given him
Simply because he could not send it back:
Choruses of light come up from the purple water,
Fires lining the cliff-edge, urgent shades of despair
In every open window along the coast,
The distant whine of gulls and the stammering waves,
Motionless midnight air, sand in the white-throated sound
Of the moon's weak travel from bold to release,
The savage sun and its bleeding gardens of salt.
What litlle he held in his hand, in his breast,
He knew he had to be thankful for. It was enough,
Would have to be enough: a late impermanent whispering
Under the fronts, a death-wet song of arriwal,
A waiting to hear what pain is like, in which
The words always came out wrong and stayed that way.
