Philip Brady

Carmel

Why do we turn away from the eternal?
Robinson Jeffers asked. The Pacific surf,
crashing against the inscape of his skull,
washed off brine and starfish, and left,
turn from the eternal. Frail vowels
spiral into a cerulean sky
so vast it seems almost believable
there is no other we. No turning away.

I am in thrall to an inhuman voice
chanting the mantra beyond silence:
Turn eternal. Drown your secret loss.
Let every moment achieve utterance.
Even the stones of Tor House mark the seconds
between the rasping slant rhymes of the ocean.

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