(I watch
and the pelicans plummet into the water.)
It must be the time of year,
with the wind blowing through my hair
and roughing the river;
perhaps it’s just this wooden bridge
and the line slicing itself into halves
bending back beneath the edge
of the weathered boards.
(There the brown algae limps
back and forth on the bottom).
Whatever the cause:
all the twisted deadwood of those days
washes up, bleached as bone, in a line
that crooks and stretches out of sight
in the haze and spray of oncoming night.
(Pelicans plummet
and I watch them into the water.)
Eau Gallie, 1958
From Patrick’s collection found in the file poems.odt and similar.
Patrick Meadows 1934 – 2017.