Alice and the Sea
Alice stood alone, looking out at the sea,
rolling and heaving and spraying and roaring,
waves breaking and spilling foam and
water at the quay.
She was lost in all of this and in
herself, all rising up inside, moving,
sadness, voices, dance, cellars, skies
from the place where she was born, her dog
near death at home, all disconnected
but all present, as present as the ache
of living in all of this and as alive as
the tidal stream and the light of the
moon, all a current inside, a shadow
and a far away memory of what
could have been.
There at this place of wind and salt,
she felt her heart beating, her breath
coming in and out, and within the noise
there was a heart of silence in which
she was by now used to go, a center
of being inside, the stream of the
mind not touching it, the restlessness
of the days not reaching, a point from where
observation prevented participation.
the hunter watched, seeing her leave, a stubborn neck,
hair wild in the breeze, blowing her nose
and sniffing the scent of the beach
she walked away.
The Hunter of a Lonely Heart
He stood there in the shadow of a wall
as if he belonged there since this wall
had been built. Algae and moss grew out
of the fissures between the old granite
stones, they were wet and glittering
in the night. He felt as if he was not existing,
foreign to himself and hidden in obscurity.
Shivering he started to move, staring into
the fog coming now, the wind had dropped,
and he shuffled along the quay without
a horizon. coughing he disappeared
between the houses on the other side.
