So It Goes

That marsh hawk,

its blown-leaf flight

across Tomales Bay fog,

summer’s abraded light,

the Pacific tide pressuring

and squeezing wave on wave

into the bay’s pinched inlet. . .

We feel somehow between us

still water crushed by that sea,

so constant it seems not to be.

The hawk, a circus, tumbles,

stops, stands upon the air,

beats its wings as if to shoo

the sun’s drenched veils,

and its clapping wings stop

our unstoppable argument,

that love goes, who knows why,

and delivers us from pain

to pain, air with teeth

that seems to eat more air.  

Northern harrier, owl face,

they sea-changed your name,

who listens with your face

and shows not love but want,

speed, life in flight

toward, forever toward,

pausing at every chance

to use what ocean-born

bayside air sustains you

by resisting you. We thank

your sunken head bones

and wild close-to-water seeking

that somehow speaks to us,

           delivers us

                    to another amazed

                              agonized place.