the snark

"The whole method of surf-riding and surf-fighting, is one of non-resistance. Dodge the blow that is struck at you. Dive through the wave that is trying to slap you in the face. Sink down, feet first, deep under the surface and let the big smoker that is trying to smash you go by far overhead. Never be rigid. Relax. Yield yourself to the waters that are ripping and tearing at you. "

--Jack London
(from "The Cruise of the Snark, 1908

....sunday....

what do you want to talk about?
do you want
to talk about how that life then
holds sadness now
as a cup holds anything,
collecting things that can't be discarded:

a room, a time, a feeling like laying in
the summer night grass stargazing or
seeing the fourth-of-July fireworks or

your novel, hardbound now
as our past.

remember us minting
gingerbread villages
peopled by happy winter dwellers,
but can you recall
it exactly?

what choice did any of us have
following that map

as we now follow yours.
the charge belongs to you and
you alone because your woman of
thirty-five years
is dead and gone,
the pasture has been plowed,
the horses long gone,
the kids' dog buried in the woods.

let us not talk about
the inevitable ways in which

decline is palpable, cup overturned,

fairy-tale of eternity

finally cross examined.