This one's called, "All The Lies Buried."
Against the streetlight, great flakes of snow.
Look like little sheets of paper tumbling from the Midnight Sky.
I catch several on my glove, turn them over,
blank on both sides.
How am I to continue with messages like these?
As I walk down the street to the ocean,
I think of all the lies buried by the falling snow.
The pile of firewood that never reached the barn.
Last summer's carrots still in the garden.
And those harsh words I said tonight about separation
and the loss of love I see them now, little irregular lumps.
And whatever hopes you had, my wife, they're
out here too, those cold unweighables
buried deeper and deeper.
And the baby, our son who follows us
around the house saying be happy, those words
are out here someplace.
It's all out here.
Every key, knife, and coin I ever lost,
every domestic ambition, every little household improvement I
put back on the shelf.
At the ocean's edge black water laps against a border of ice,
white flakes hit the surface and disappear.
I remember one summer a small bird with red beak
and red eyes running along the surf.
When the water retreated the bird hurried to the edge
dug a little then ran back as the waves returned.
I watched it make its way down the beach,
always was working that thin line between sand and water.
Sometimes a wave rushed in too fast
swamping the bird, which then shook itself and continued.
And I liked that, liked how the bird kept to the very edge.
I even thought that's the work I want for myself.
As if that line with the division
between world and soul, the place where life itself lies
hidden.
But tonight I think, isn't it living at the edge
that makes the trouble?
Never getting comfortable or taking anything for
granted, never trusting anything.
Across the Bay I see the glimmerings
of house lights, no bigger or brighter than stars.
Are those the cold lights of reason,
or the constant glimmerings of fear?
I feel surrounded by messages I don't understand.
Better to let them go and try forgetting.
Better to say there are no messages that those lights are
no more than people reading or watching the TV.
Tomorrow they'll climb from bed that their usual hour, trudge
off to work, and the whole mess will continue.
And me too, I'll climb from bed groggy with sleep
and stand at the window scratching my belly.
Far out to sea, I may notice a sail or flashing light,
no telling what it's doing or what it means.
In between will be the huge and rising waves that beat and beat
this poor Earth yet leave no help, no guidance,
no lesson but confusion.
What does the water leave at the waves edge?
Whatever it leaves the waves then hammer it down,
bury it deeper and deeper under the sand
as if the waves message, like the message of Earth or snow,
is simply burial.
The brain's message to memory.
The black dirt's message to a corpse.
[APPLAUSE]