Plight: Across the Sound

            The ferry    I watch

            on its way   across

            shimmery    horizons

   is my janussary

                    facing    back

            and facing    forth

                           as    back    

                         and  forth

             it plies the  way

       from what we   say

                            is    land to

                                island.

             It stitches

         and stitches    together

                          my   Scylla

                     to my   Charybdis:

           On the one    shoal

              the rocky    solace

                           of    solitude,

               the self's    rich fisheries,

               the siren    song

            of internal    dialog.

      On the farther   shore

             connecting   love,

                             or   its

                                    tempting

                                    attempt:

                 its flows    like honey

                 its ebbs      like death

       the impossible    limits

                              of    offering one soul to another,

                       across    dangerous

                     tidetorn   margins.

         And as I watch    from my place

                          comes   crossing

                                        from the reverse direction,

                                        backward looking

                             and    forward,

                            "The    Wawona,"

                  twin-ended  twin to

                             "The    Illahee."

              As they closely   pass at mid-run

                   tiny mortals   wave

                                            back

                                 and    forth

                              so far    away

                 they are only   glints across the water

                           winking:

       their arms reaching,

       their beautiful wings

                          spreading   and closing.

              I sigh, and sing   and watch

                                    for   the next transit of Venus

                                             the next crossing

                                     on    the regular run

                               across   the Sound.

 9/24/89

First printed as a broadside by The Welsh Hill Press & Forge, 1991