Impressionism (near St. Laurent sur Mer)

……………………………………………………………………….1.

Under her bonnet the silent little girl
in a white frock whose puffed-up sleeves sputter
………………………………………………………….in the little
wind, whose also-white pinafore slaps its looping back-bow
this way and that against the landscape, stands
………………………………………………………….very still,
on a small, arcing, quasi-ornamental bridge over the inlet streaming
…………………………………………………………………………between dunes and land.
Sun shines down hard.
Everything seems to want to shout something out.
Beyond her, on that side, dune and tall dune grasses
……………………………………………….juggling long winds all one way
at any given once,
……………………………………made silvery by every mile-long bend.
She’s leaning on the wooden rail. Her frock is jagged in its
………………………………………………………………………..private wind
of starch and straightenings and cleanliness. Her hair
is held by tiny yellow bows.
.

……………………………………………………………………….2.

Downstream blue herons, two, wade in and fish.
Each beak catches the light a little differently.
Also, once, the foot uplifts in the isosceles
of just a single wading-step—half-interrupted now, as if mid-thought.
……………………………………………………………………………………….Look how it’s held
as the eye discerns, among the currents, the half-truth that can
…………………………………………………………………………………………….be caught.
.

……………………………………………………………………….3.

I feel these are the tablets of the law.
Midsummer, noon, grass, sand, surf, cloth.
Rectitude of birds. In-
candescent pinafore where she leans out over the
…………………………………………………………………railing now.
The parked cars gleam. The streamlet gleams.
What is it one would listen past to hear?
Hands in my pockets I think of the holy tablets
again, trying to look everywhere at once.
What more am I supposed to do.
The bottom of things is neither life nor death.
The bottom is something else.
.

……………………………………………………………………….4.

As if a tree could siphon all its swollen fruit
back in, down into its limbs, dry up the
……………………………………………tiny opening
where manifestation slipped out—
taking it all back in—until it disappears—until
that’s it: the empty tree with all inside it still—
versus this branching out before me of difference, all
………………………………………………………brilliantly lit, out-
………………………………………………………reaching, variegating,
feeding a massive hunger.
The heron is full of hunger.
The miles of one-thought-driven grasses full of
…………………………………………………………hunger.
Although not in this register.
.

……………………………………………………………………….5.

I feel there is only one question.
Everywhere the shine covering the through
through which hunger must move.
And gladly. It must be done gladly or it will not
serve. And yes there is surplus—
but on the surface (untouchable) and in the
…………………………………………………………..narrow
(inaudible) we are slaves, ferrying the hunger back and
…………………………………………………………………………………………forth.
.

……………………………………………………………………….6.

From the railing, down into the stream-bed,
a yellow string hangs from the fist of the
………………………………………………………….child—
crayon-yellow—fuzzy—with tiny filaments light lets us
……………………………………………………………………….see wind in.
It is repeated on the surface, then where it enters, breaks.
Wind throbs sky, dress, grass about, but
the string’s held taut by something underwater, so taut that very
close you’d hear the thrumming it is forced to make.
Perfect vertical! Calm fills me as I reach the
………………………………………………………………….child.
What’s on your string, I ask, arms full—towels, shoes, basket and
………………………………………………………………………………………………my book.
Where are the others is something that I also think.
Also how full my head is of the wind,
papery, stripping my face away— hot dry woodplanks
………………………………………………………………………..where my feet
are placed. Let it come on.
..If I stand still I see
the shadow of the string on wood
grow shorter as it’s drawn back up into
its source. Soon something will be here. I feel
consumer confidence: I laugh
out loud. A little wind.
Birdcheeping in the tall grass now.
.

……………………………………………………………………….7.

It is swollen, thick, pin-cushioned with fat and slack-dead open
……………………………………………………………………………………….pores,
the bleached-out jumbo turkey-leg and thigh as it’s drawn up
knotted to this yellow string—eleven crabs attached, all feeding
……………………………………………………………………………………….wildly on their
……………………………………………………………………………………….catch, clacking
their armors onto each other, claws embedded—pulled
…………………………………………………………………………..up the yolk-
…………………………………………………………………………..yellow force
onto the dock and crushed, each, at the head by the child’s hammer
………………………………………………………………………………………….taken to them
one by one—fast—only one scrambling across the bridge today
……………………………………………………………………………………………..to get away—
the leg/thigh leaking all over the fading grayed-out planks,
the full-moon catch of crabs picked up claw-end by many
hands that seem to suddenly materialize
out of the nowhere to which I am
………………………………………….now sent.
There’s no way back believe me.
I’m writing you from there.