Wild Composition

I walk along the beach to 

read pieces from the sea

some scrawled in hurried flourishes

along the tide line, urgent but soon erased

some etched by receding waves

runic wrinkles in the sand

some collaged from feathers,

shells, and the light and graceful bones

of birds who died on a distant shore

above me gulls attempt translation

add their tracks to the margins

I rest my cheek on a towel on sand

and feel her hum, the earth, 

hear no busy bee buzz nor 

restless whine of wasp

just someone who hums while she works

like a broad washer woman with

clothespins in her mouth

she murmurs a wistful unnamed melody

and flicks aside the biting flies before

the thunderstorm.

Earth wheezes against my cheek

and shudders, moving,

but unmoved by the helter skelter

of human sand flea jitterbugging.

081909, 082009