Silt Washes
The silt washes onto the long land,
embargo of the Pacific Rim,
endlessly pooling around the heron’s legs,
measured by the millionth of an inch;
here is the flesh of crews
gone down under the sun. And the bones of oars.
Who can take them back?
The hardy change of nature
in macaroni-dives, freight offices,
cheek hollows of business clerks, lifts
the body off the bed into the ruined dark,
down down in the ebbing ways,
down under the forest floor
where springs suck and gurgle,
under the wide world
shallow with water and old rains