The
Grey Question
Sinking to our ankles
We are lowered by waves
From our cliff heights to be
Tickled
by sand crabs
Sixteen and forty-six
Son and Father both
At Big Sur’s brine
Absorbed by the surge
Two sands crawl apart
Lights drop in troughs
Black sands on ridges
Blurring again in drift
Separated in the run of tide
Feet washed by the rush
Humbled by the sinking
Toss
and roiled churn
Where rolling otters guzzle
In the upper lips of waves
And elephant seals straddle
Fat
across the landscape
Where sunk gods rise with
Gleaming guanoed peaks
Splashed with the curious
Spinal
curves of cormorants
If I could rewind sixteen
Years with what you share
With me now I would not
Have had it done to you
Calculating the sands
How was I to know
You would not want
To be circumcised?
How are we to know
How far is safe, from
Dripping, jaded cliffs
And the swollen depths?
That is the grey question of the
ocean