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