By the Surf's Edge

By the surf's edge Where the water nibbles at our toes We are on life's ledge Where tides snoring flows No Columbus will come again To rescue us with chains No Hossanah to shout again With the coming flood of pains It is a weary cross we wear An empty pole of hope In the silence of the tear; Still not for us the dangling rope. These are hard times The bread turns green before Our feast of sour limes The center is rotted to the core The hawk looms above the eye Its vision is on my sight Shall I shake the indifferent sky For more dreams tonight? How beautiful the death of day How calm the coming night How small stars look far away How vain our raging at the light! Common sense drips away Bucket after bucket of logic in decay We circle the wilderness Like hawks barbed with bitterness What did the singer say before he died Before his last dance When sleep his last dream denied "This is it," such resonance In the words, such finality Such knowing of the time The end and certainty Without that wisdom still sublime O, the sea is laughing At the stars, crinkling their faces The sky is pretending It's tying shoes laces Curving away From cuddling my heart Aloof, I would say While things fall apart.