We knew about the ocean:
sharks and moods and pearls.
Flood waters in Brigantine.
So we did the safe thing,
a house eight miles in
on the edge of the Barrens—
no pure sand, but the soil
that has sand in it
in which the scrub oaks grow.
We should have known nothing’s safe.
That love is an ocean too.
That locks break if touched
just right. And so we live now
with the doors open, the heart
learning about the fullness and ache
that comes from letting in.
The flowers are rose and violet.
They grow in spite
of where we live. Three miles away
the old vegetable man thinks
now of drought, now of rain.
We try to buy from him.
We try to do the right thing
but sometimes we lick the palm
of a middleman, change the balance,
follow our hungers.
Everyone suffers.
This landscape won’t stop.
This landscape is everywhere.
Come fall we find ourselves
on our knees, doing what must be done
in the yard. The cold comes.
The cold is wisdom
saying huddle together, go inside.
And the cold follows us
as far as it can.