He sits alone on a bench
embedded in the sands of Golden Gardens Park.
Is it both sadness and complacent joy he reflects?
What does he see out there over the water?
It cannot be only mountains.
But, I will not ask him:

A wilderness is more beautiful undisturbed.

Waves move toward us.
Our sun warms the faces.
We are the same in the sand.

A thought comes now behind this camera
as I watch a man in his life:
What am I here to capture?
Have I just become another fanatic of time
collecting moments like butterflies,
specimens to only pin in place?

Static idols never dance.

Perhaps this thought,
the man,
electromagnetic fields,
drums of oil,
greed
make up the same force in you and me.
Maybe it’s the same gyrating force in trees and fish,
bacteria and war — the pinned up pieces of us.

There it is:
a planet,
space between form,
the eyes you had before you were born.

I cannot deny the Great Wave
I feel moving out beyond the Sound
and far past all the sons and daughters
and herds and pyramids on Pluto —
part of one liquid pulse dancing in circles.

Every Big Bang a clap to the rhythm.

Thoughts, desires, lives:
tiny grains bouncing on the dried skin of a drum;
a tide absent of time that patterns vibration;
flowers in fluid fields closing round blooming mosaic hues
of living jewels in ellipses.

I hear it now.

The songs of our future memories
murmur softly in choirs of life-octaves:
all those birthdays,
stubbed toes,
break-ups
and wishing something were so;
all the love for my family,
alarm clocks,
funerals,
missed boats
and big jobs and burnt seas and lovers.

“Don’t worry, don’t hurry,” they sing, “You will soon discover.”