Words at Sea

Words don’t eat, or if we do,
It’s what we mean we must eat.
On what else could a name feed?

A sign is like a live cell,
Like that ship, the parts of which,
One and by one, all get switched,

But at all times still one ship,
One live cell, one sign. Our sounds,
Shapes, and use each shift by bits,

But there’s some through-line to this.
Is that it? Is that still life?
Boats made of waves sail the waves.

This Is Not the Past

In dreams, some part of you
Has the task to pick names
To go with each blurred face.

She is still dead, now, when
You think of her as she
Lived then, and then, and then.

For each then, its own life,
Its own her, its her as
She was then, but for all

Of them, just the one ghost.
This is not the past, not
For her, not for one

Of you, the rest of us,
Not the past you were taught,
Books closed, time for a test.

Hills Have Soil Creep

Dirt flows in slow streams.

No trees have to fall,

Noise or not. No lives

Have to dig up holes.

On its own, earth flows.

Put it in a lab

In a great, neat pile

Too low to slide down,

And still it will slide.

Of course the slide’s slow.

But on it will go.

You don’t need to poke

At it or shift it.

Just let the dirt sit,

And it starts to move.

This has been well proved.

Grains of the world stir,

Then slip by. And yet

It moves, gains a new

Sense from such slow glides,

And we have to ask,

If waves of thought plan

And can mean things, and

Waves of light throw shades,

What of waves of sand?