From the Gulf

High summer the clouds here are motionless,

they have nothing to do with us,

the lives we chose. Over the water

they roll back mornings tapering

at their ends, flecked like eggs

a giant sea bird warmed & fled.

And the palms, how quietly they bend

their shafts through white heat, trembling

the upper branches, quivers

in the noon's calm. How strange

at the beach each one of us appears

naked to ourselves & yet a body

Greek deities took on in stone.

While from the surface of the ocean,

at evening, shaking off the foam,

the fixed stars' stare has risen

with their reflections, found their names,

light, light, & nothing we can be.