january sunday morning in fresno
colors I cannot name fly at me
in particle-stream-photon-waves
striking the rods of my eye at a magnificent rate
passing over and
under the pelican’s patient wings
I am anxious to know if his wing tips are
wet – they are only
one inch from the swells
poems are a great stock pot
boiling down to the sticky bottom
the tastes of all my senses
which is why at your wedding I watched everything so closely
and yet,
now the mottle on the Mesolithic bird’s back
is the same color as Nina Simone’s voice
crashing the mountains into the heart of the sea
over sunday morning tea
over heard talk about money
and nothing;
the silence of watching
is the same color as the line of sea melting
rain sometimes the naming of colors
is similar to the naming of children
colors name days and remain unnamed
casting shadows over all our conversations
how we choose our words
whether we avert our eyes
and often days are gray,
when they should be grey sea days
of my longing and aching – speaking
with rhythm
salt on my lip which
the wind dries
sea days remind me of the
Welsh grey blue green changing of the seasons
eyes of my wife
which call me to a heritage that is not my own,
eyes that speak terribly of love
divine neither of us can sound,
though the mountains should tremble at our surging
there are days when I run headlong into new words
and they break me open
tearing my heart fourteen times
cold grey rain at Laguna Beach at your
wedding slips of the seals’ oily skin
I am soaked -
by mud of colors I have named
speak to me in the language of moment
phrases that twist my tongue which I cannot learn
‘less I am taught one by one
starting with salt stinging my eyes
battering my rods with a brilliant array and speed and size
giving me five, eight, ten more senses until I
can pronounce the joy color of wind making my
skin leather and my heart
no longer just moving blood in my veins
but beating in a solid world of light