ISSUE: Summer 2011
A summer rain front laces a trailing hat of mist
around the headland’s mountain: a saucer of mist
scraping the treetops hanging over rock outcrops
Imagine it whispering through the branches,
caught on the slope
The mountain wears its hat like a Chinese boatman
Only here, only now, this bit of coast could do it—
a suddenness of rain and moisture among the months of drought
with things changing, things coming to an end
and before it, the ocean’s clarity
the smooth blue translucent sea emerging in a sunburst
sky clearing as the blood clears the mist trails hanging
the rich, green slopes darker than cedars
spindly arms of die-back trees sharp as cotton threads of white,
while longer shadow move imperceptibly
from water into trees
and the mist-hat
taking on a bluer tinge, a sculpted shape
wet summery light etching the thing into
a space more visible, more real, than anything luminously sublime
slipping its shape into the eye beyond the edge of words
better defined than digital TV knife-like sharp and separated
yet reflected there, merged, blended into water and so,
to be remembered constantly to be remembered coastally
as if the mountain and its mist have this propensity
in the production and intenseness of attraction
the mountain mirrored in the instant’s stillness
of the calm sea flooding into the bay
the mountain photoing its image on the waters
over the grounds where dolphins track and then its scarves
hanging high in the air like drifted parachutes
white against blue grey against blue edges smudged into the blue
such an instance bringing with it delight’s suddenness
as if in the guise of bird or angel gathered in the lucid air
What is the mountain doing at the headland
why is it there thing most “thing” of things shaped upwards
against the sky’s wishes even if it is the sky
which bathes each contour
familiar with it over aeons and the presence
of trees, sun, rain, and water about which
nothing needs be done the connections rest
back of the mind, back of time an event is made
through each and all its shifting lines
a grey-backed gull hovering above the water will soon plunge
far out, a sea-wave’s silky whiteness starts to flower, then breaks
The blue-green slope flatters the ocean with its white-ant greys
its fluctuating greens its underscore of cavernous marine
they’re so close it’s so phenomenal! the cavernous blue
within the dark of every branch and every depth
in which a necessary shift is richness beyond the eye’s ability
to see the thing it loves and love it so again
(what do I see?) how is there love such as this
proceeding from the heart of things the brain of things
glimpsed like some familiar sense of air and space
a phrase so familiarly known you don’t hear it
or a thought so tantalising loaded in the tissue
a black crow’s feathers fluttering a word tossed out across
the gritty wind of a car park parallelism of intentions
or just some pure greeting pure love The mountain wreathed in last night’s
