SOMETIMES I GO OUT ON A LARK

Follow a path that isn’t obvious

Pursue a feeling that is as fragile

As a bone-china teacup sitting high and forgotten On an antique store’s shelf

 

The light comes through that thin porcelain

The cup has the translucence

of the old cashier’s hand

Of an unplugged lovesong

Of dusk in general

(Fragile & fleeting, dusk ought to be considered with gentleness)

 

When I consider, with this quiet care,

The dying light of a day

And think about unanswerable questions

I think about how if I didn’t sometimes

Wander away into the sunset

I might become inert with sadness

A sadness might grow, like moss, over my immobile branches

 

I might stay this way, embalmed in the slow-growing beauty

That is an oil-painted pear

That is aging

That is the great settling down into the earth

 

But I surf, therefore I move

I move, and watch, and move some more

I think of nothing, feeling everything

Connected to the slightest shift in the ocean’s surface

To the shadows in the water below me

To the sound of water under my surfboard

 

I observe no looping mind

No jumping thoughts

No turbulence

When I get out of the water I always feel

Like I’ve been to the truth and back

 

I let surfing answer the unanswerable questions

I catch the waves and carve little pathways into the ocean

Trying to follow them all the way to shore

sliding along with my feelings

Considering them with gentleness

AS THE LIGHT FADES