TODAY I HAVE NO WISDOM
I have walked blessed and bareheaded
on the seashore
with as little wisdom as the opened clam
its dead mouth streaming with sand
or the birds half sunk
in shallow halls of wood-trunk and tide pool.
I have listened with the small acuity of
crabshell on rock
of water falling through sand
of the tide coming home
to a welcome on by boot-tops
and always
moving everywhere
the sea air is running hands over my open neck.
I have never learned to tread quietly here
where sounds are always rushing on the beach
or upward with the gulls,
on an open beach
a voice can be tenacious in the wind
and the chest heaves to snatch a breath
and cry again.
For today I have no wisdom but that of sand
heaving from some dream that sleeps beneath the tide
until I come with my voice bellowing
and my small child's heart
and I walk through the sea-spume
like a man walking through sparks
or an intense fire where the heart ignites
and explodes leaving nothing
not an ember of wisdom to warm me
It is all consume in the moment
of dazzling
upward
flame of pure presence.
-from Songs for Coming Home
Songs for Coming Home is currently out of print, but you can often find used copies online and in bookstores.
Powerful!! This poem goes straight to my heart and I could dance barefoot where tide meets sand. Today I know nothing at all! Thank you David!! Sonia
Gorgeous, gorgeous! "... no wisdom but that of sand heaving from some dream that sleeps beneath the tide..." I love metaphors that way with expressing our subconscious, especially those that include water. Rejoicing in this one today. Thank you!