Along the Shores

Breezes and birds and clattering
grasses—this is my music now,
the score each day I read by sight

along the shores of brine ponds
and the wide plains where the Rhone
marries the Mediterranean.

This is my confluence, where the water
divides among the godwits and stilts.
I am coming together

even as I am pulled apart,
following the water through
its channels and rivulets.

I am fractured and I am whole.
I am here and yet
I cannot belong.

In their faces, I will always be l’etranger,
the man from the northern city,
an odd duck—ah, but I would be

a flamingo, a poet.
I would be the sunrise
mirrored in the tides

if only I could see her face—I pray—
if only I could follow that goddess
and her white horses to the sea.