from here it looks as though
the ocean has been butter smoothed in parts
perhaps with a hot knife
one cottonball cloud hangs
motionless above its pink echoing seashadow
down at land’s edge the palms
make a bobbly fringe
while seven small doves
compose an oratorio high on the wires
that carry a different kind of current up the hill
streaming past the casuarinas
standing motionless in the soft air
offering their own quiet cadenza
like the sound from that shell your mother
put into your hand
way back in your third summer and said
listen, the water is calling
