"Or from the sea of Time, collecting casting all, I bring, A window-drift of weeds and shells." Whitman, from "Autumn Rivulets"







Pelican



Savannah time, old plains, meadow, rocky outcropping,
the oaks at the top chiseled and bled by time itself,
hill time carved out by the unseen labor of the glacier
that left the fields ripe for the seeds of lupine, spiderwort, columbine –
Circling above it all, above the hill and marshland,
above the back channels endlessly weaving in secret spindles
and worn back by the beaver's born industry,
the prehistoric pelicans shaking air by shorn wings.
What do they see? Do they know the old glacier receding,
the channel waters rising and falling below the oak trunk roots?
Does the eye of the mind know where to roost for two days
in among the yet colorless April fields unfolding?