Rügen Island Day Trip
(The Baltic Sea, for Daris)
We went looking
where you had never been
where water held us in circuit
with the megalithics of the Stone Age
they had centuries
we had a day
the fields ran along
excited by our bus
tossing pale manes
assured as all the recently shorn
of comeliness
we were a view they did nothing to get
and would not miss
when we were gone
the forest was close and dark as sockets
but for narrowed light
that reached toward ground
to turn into a hearth
at a dip in the middle
a man who had nothing to say
noticed a swamp of green choke
like a drained sea
trees counted us easily on their thumbs
ignoring the girl
who spoke to an empty seat
and the woman at the kiosk
dragging a sweater by one arm
dust climbed into our clothes and ears
at the chalk white cliffs
we could not run fast enough to be so high
a boy collected sticks a flint
swans and gulls veered from water
to their own color and disappeared
then we went down around
under an early moon
trees leaned
willows oaks
the scrubs we have at home
a small red berry
the bus worked hard at an edge
we could not watch
I heard the scrape of shoes across a mat
and fell asleep hard against the window
It is better the guide said to keep together
our shade jumped on the farms animals rust
while right in front of me
a man smoothed his hair
his nails left a white trail
he tightened
when I told him about the birds
then we were out again
into a town with an old church
our hearts asleep
our legs like pneumatics
our minds attentive to the motorized gods
of the carpark
someone out of film said
permanence is inherent sin
a woman looked for her keys
and near a fence
a horse lay all the way down on its side
it was our longest day
in the way of doing nothing
we were happy not to be lost
we had a stone a schedule a conveyance
which must have seemed
to the eclipsed
very much like wings