Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, DECEPTION PASS; FOR JUDY AND MARK KAWASAKI, by KAREN SWENSON


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

DECEPTION PASS; FOR JUDY AND MARK KAWASAKI, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: It is very high here
Last Line: Lingers upon this thigh of tide.
Subject(s): Islands; Nature


It is very high here
where the Pacific limbs blue between the islands
among rocks scabbed with gray lichens.

A gray crochet of lichens,
the humble one-celled union of land and sea -
alga and fungus - works stone.

There is a photograph of the world, taken from outer space,
that resembles this rock,
a thing tender in its clasp of cloud and continent.

Their gentle chisel of growth
casts the rock to earth circle by circle,
an expanding scab of life,

and all their progeny are sand,
as if the earth were an ever-after hourglass
with this frail lace the only supplier of time.

This pale marriage clasps the eternal and makes it tick,
makes forever green
hours of trees

forever half-grown in the Pacific wind
where the serene shadow of a gull
lingers upon this thigh of tide.





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