'georgia' - (december 2008)

I went to the shoreline
and planted my foot in the sea
waiting to witness
how my toes would turn to roots
in the salt water
and my outstretched hand
would blur into a canopy

but the breakers on rock-shores-
the rounding of pebbles and stones-
spoke to me
like a whisper of bark
falling from arbutus trees
saying I have no place
among the land-makers
among their rock-breaking waves

but roots deepen, ensnare
and the rustle of feet
across new-minted sand
says that the waves
are just as untested,
unwelcome,
here on the shoreline
the in-between land
of their advances, retreats

in my ebb from the shore
back to the land-ocean
the sea laughs
at my notions of equivalence
as I retreat to the line
of less adventurous pines
the greedy waves suck away
at all hints of my passage
desperate
in keeping their no-man's-land
while
the crack of rock-sand
keeps us both at bay