Blackfish Creek by Robert Baird

To see it up like that,
unbreeched and unbegun,

now peremptory in its dominion,
now aching over ours.

The wind calls through
the baffles of the tidal sway:

O rasp! O beggar!
O children of the caul!

To sphere the light
and send it crashing,

to watch it land asea,
thwarted by the hand

of the body of the spirit
of its own devising.

(This could give a man pause
if he would let it.)

Let them go. They are late
for Lieutenant Island.

Now bowing to find it flashing
in the surf, cursing

to catch it dashing
desperately ashore.

This is something to which
we gain access through sight.

This is how the moon plies its trade
across the blood-brain barrier.