Living Glass

The pine-sheltered benches, the cliff path

Lined with fencegates and pink wild rose

Took me then toward the small salt-windowed seaside

school,

And now, in my longing to escape from those I hurt,

Rebuild before my eyes to throw a sea-light

On the bare, inland, sleeping feet of those I love.

Suddenly the goat kid in its driftwood pen bleats for them,

Their faces simplified while I watch them wake.

Their clothes, swirled on the floor,

Remind me of the lengthy row the tide makes

Of opal and living glass, miles of jellyfish

Retiring, some navy blue as bottle-stones.

Their deaths increase their hue.

The clear ones lay a glass stairway

Bannistered by seamarks, and often this is the path

I walk beside to the distant schoolbell,

Imagining a strand of kelp the bellrope

And each jellyfish a ghost

Who, living mornings, pulled.

Death has no depth like where they lived.

And so, as the great tide shies back

Around its water-breathing fleets, death

Is what they pull against,

The whole way to the bell.

There, with wind to spare,

Lame people with canes stroll miles

And their grandchildren stay put, dissolving castles,

They can't escape. Under their low eyes

Mica mirrors all its sources around the world

And the tide rolls in, brown and blue

As two sides of a swallow twisting in the air.

Somehow I've hurt you. Sit with me here

And watch the children burst the sandwalls and climb free.

Follow with me the sea's champagne glasses

To the schoolhouse, and

Taking turns we'll sit awakened

In the summer-empty seats, the other teaching

With chalk-covered hands. Then we'll wash ourselves

Of any bitter knowledge with the sands.