Post # 18

BONGOS

At night, on the banks of the St. Croix

there are few things which
distract from a picture
a thousand years old;
three lamps
shine orange across
the shore, illuminating
little more than themselves.
An airplane groans
deep and old from somewhere,
through the forest behind me.
This, and the sagging dock,
a few glass bottles tucked into the sand,
are all that separate me from the
long ago, a story no one can tell me.
My fingertips extinguish the lights across the river,
I stare at the insides of my eyelids until
the planes overhead filter into background
and hum like the world around-
same volume, different frequency.
Every second with my eyes closed
focuses the long ago, until the waves
weaving around the dock accept my advances
and soften;
It all folds into new sound.
But with my eyes shut I can’t see the river,
or the trees or sand or smooth rock
and I realize that the lights, the planes,
are all as natural as the currents of
air and water and mud that move here-
the only difference is newness.
So little difference exists between the soft
orange lights and the bird’s nests perched next to them
in the trees; the airplane flies somewhere between a robin
and a shooting star.
My foot ascends the curve of a glass bottle,
I stare again at the opposite bank,
try to make out the expanse in steady crescendo,
carving into rock and churning sand,
growing, slower than anything but growing.
Close your eyes long enough
and everything becomes a single
force in unison,
but that is only the beginning
of a story.
Watching the St. Croix eat rock 
and dirt makes me realize that only
a few degrees temperature
separate this bottle under my foot
from the sand in my shoes.

BRASS