Estuary

Caves, the wind blows through most nights.
Ancient, indelible pathways
through layers of strata,
debris and detritus,
deposits of sand
and of bone,
white rock struck by midday sun.

Great Earth,
great lopsided, whirling mother,
to you I am speaking
to you with your sister the moon,
great shifters of tides
and of seasons.

These years are yours
for the keeping,
the holding and longing.
To you they return every autumn
and not to the sky.

Yours alone
are the circling seasons.
So why should they ask me,
and what can I say?

I could drift
like a newborn river,
meandering Alpine meadows
or carving out limestone bluffs
from beneath a tree.

I might flash over granite or gold,
wash out the long arm of the spit
to the source of all rivers,
the mouth of all rivers,
the slow swinging ocean,
the salt water sea.