a luna battered the glass and left
a pale green husk for the morning,
a shower of summer sparks. you sailed
your stone boat, racing the shadows
into the earth, eager to be away
­­ and nothing will hold you in these words.

for i with my privilege of words
will facade whatever is left,
and the memories bear you away:
the sun, good as gold in the morning,
too soon is cocooned in shadows,
emerging silver, then bronze… it sailed

like a damned kite that day, sailed
to hell and gone (o futile words
that blaze and set!), drew shadows
like scars on the dry land you left
(and rose again the next morning,
a pale bubble, drifting away

on the wind.) your craft made way,
etching an opal wake; sailed
beyond reach of the morning,
leaving us shorebound. our words
couldn’t measure the gap, and were left
to hang in the air and disperse like shadows.

but what is the voice, the image, that shadows
me like a double, pointing the way
with such knowledge, the message you left
in the bottle, cast off as you sailed?
too well i carry those scribbled words
that refuse to come clear in the morning.

we hauled in the anchor, the morning
gull-grey, sloughing its shadows,
so slipped the night’s mooring; words
had died with the stars. we got under way,
the breeze picking up, and sailed
that rough beast to the harbours left.

another morning there seemed a way
to follow the shadows where they sailed:
and these words are all i have left.