i moved into this small cabin, perched
a heart beat and break
from ocean’s edge, during the toddling
new legs of southeast Alaskan Spring. snow still
thick in its muscled mountain
blankets, the alder and mountain ash
that frame cabin’s deck,
still lithe in their denuding. leaves still
but a root’d suggestion. as sun
spun higher in our jeweled sky, i studied
at the ocean,
in attempts to understand
its steadfast patience. A small intertidal island
only yards offshore in this berried bay, it offered
neither complaint nor clinging desire,
during its daily consumption
and abandonment. The ocean, devoted
in its lunar love, swelling in endless pursuit.
this cabin held me
through heartbreak, a woman i love
finding room to leave in the yawning
gaps of my brokenness. this cabin allowed
me to work towards learning: to cry
again, to stretch in meditative practice, to gently tend
to the mutterings of my seething spirit. and the ocean
right now outside, it seethes.
the coastal winds carry sheet music
of rain with the austere choral of Fall. the mountain
ash, framer of cabin porch, it now shines
in the resplendence of its bleeding Fall fruit. each
berry a bright punctuation point: a period.
an exclamation.
an ellipses.
as i remove my fleeting physical body
from this cabin, in the blustered midst
of squalling Fall, i am festooned
with such kind luck; to have had
brief inhabitance, to have been
inhabited, to be anything
at all.
zakschafer.com 