Adrift in Poetry

above ground / photo by shf

by Kay Ryan, 16th U. S. Poet Laureate

“Imagine the interlocking uninsistent tunes of drifting things.”

Kay Ryan asks this of me.

So I imagine the dream that woke me before dawn with its vision of unbearable despair, my sweet pup fading to ash before my eyes.

I imagine waking from despair to tears and from tears to the sweet mound of dog curled under the covers — still breathing, still whole, still there.

I imagine the new moon, its power to turn tides and alter hearts.

I imagine deep sea creatures gliding through that which will supply them, surround them, until they too become the borderless unborn of the ocean that contains them.

I imagine inboxes, information feeds, marketing, downturns, interest rates, inflation.

I imagine being adrift in drift.

Learning to float in the sea with economies and megalomaniacs and explosions of expression.

I “imagine the interlocking uninsistent tunes of drifting things.”

Thank you, Kay.

asilomar beach, ca / photo by shf