Sometimes when you look for peace
you gaze at the Pacific
where you see the absence
of dishonesty, war, racism, borders.
You see a world rinsed clean
of anger and man-made scars.
I close my eyes to see my peace:
an imagined cabin under the stars
steeped in the wood smell
of old smoldering ash,
around me a flying geese quilt
tight as a swaddle,
outside the sound of aspen trees
shaking, a Blue Jay in a sugar pine.
And what good would it do
if you told me you feel
like a caged animal in my woods,
and I said my worst nightmare
is a 75-foot wave in the Pacific
breaking over my head?
We are quiet beside each other
while a tide swallows our feet
in separate pools.
