The Water Poet
- Greg Hall
When I forget the white-brown sandpiper at the sea’s edge,
the grey gull flapped by wind,
your songs return them to me.
You insist on woman and wave and the moon’s pull
—despite history, despoilment,
bitter heartedness.
We have not loved you well,
mistaking your hard-won gifts for something
we might make on the cheap.
Why should you continue among us,
who act as if
we don’t need you anymore?
We are starved for song. Come.
Endure the vanity
of our self-congratulatory notices.
Maybe you are greater
than Neruda. Your words are no less
beautiful. Did he
wait for the tide to bring love as solace?
Did he want for pleasure, or companion?
And still you hope, still you believe
in woman and water.
You return to the crows with green glittering
eyes, hunched in the pines of rocky Nepenthe.
They are the people who await you,
read you, follow you.
It is odd. And that we failed you.
And don’t say again, after your death
we may know you. Come now.