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The old poet stumbles on a pebble
along a trail above cliffs at Land’s End
thunder underfoot he says
age reduces everything to sound if you still hear
sight if you can see except for sudden death
life flutters down turn by turn
fast at times but not like cliffs that only blur in fog
and drop without tricks or illusion
row on row the waves/ move landward
silver at the offing a poet’s only silver rumbles
the ear rolling the eye gathers
the horizon in the noise
memory tries to remember any moment
has value they are leaving after all time and the ocean
but only the ocean returns through other eyes
bearing the memory of earth breath of all that lived
this endless commencing after the crash
for George and Mary Oppen
San Francisco, 2008