Let’s First Take a Look at the Text

All night, the winds foamed waves to ice
That lined the shore at dawn with white.

Those lines of ice, of waves in ice,
Stood up like herds posed poised for flight,

As if all waves were of two minds.
Points shaped like waves yet still as mice.

Then, come the sun, waves rolled the dice
And wet themselves in warm bright fright.

What’s left of all wind’s works of night?
A few bones shine. Light words. Now write.

The Wood-Worm

The bread rose as the house
Washed down hill with the flood
And the rocks and the mud.

That’s the way that it goes,
Some things calm, some things rushed.
What you know is it goes.

Had the house held, the flood
Not broke, the bread been sliced,
Some left would have grown stale

And grown mold, the wood-worm,
Warm in the beams, would gnaw
For years. The house would fall.

To Be As Though They Had Not Been

The first lives, first cells, made a fist
To swap goods, solve their needs and fights,
But could not quite pull off the trick.
They’d have to make some kind of deal,
To share the wealth and keep this thing
Of theirs, this life. What could they do?
To live meant more than just to be.
To live meant to eat and to grow.

The first cell with a sort of pulse
Showed the way. If life had to grow,
Then life could not stop at a place,
But what if life could stop in time?
You could split and some splits could end,
Not all. Would that work? Well, not quite.
What if what was grieved life lost? Deal.
Death is as if life had not been.