MOVING

First memories are moving targets—
what the four-year old recalls,
the ten-year-old may have forgotten.

The processes of recollection
are constantly forming
deep within the brain
inside the bony ridge named for a seahorse.

Tracks lie on top of other tracks,
twisting and turning on themselves,
until we lose the reasons
why we became what we are.

AN AFTERNOON NAP

I lay slipping into sleep
as a delicious breeze washed over me,
blown in from the sea, warmed by the land,
clear and sparkling, yet soft as a caress.

From the open window, I thought
I heard a voice calling me
“Mama!” through the green summer,
across the long years.

Sunwashed, seastruck, windswept,
Sunstruck, seaswept, windwashed,
Sunswept, seawashed, windstruck.

In contentment I lay, not wanting to rouse, in delicious reverie, as if drunk from lovemaking, languorous and mellow, ready for the fall.