DELIVERING HER SOUL

You could hear
the ocean in her voice
see the sea in her eyes.

She lives
amongst mountains now
but the sea lives inside her.

The clouds cast
shadows that roam
across her fields.

Cloud shadows
grazing
in great herds.

A mountain looking silly
wearing a cloud
for a toupee.

She was still
her father's daughter
lost...at...sea.

"If I am to die
and I don't think I will ever
I hope the sea takes me!"

She laughs
at the old captain's bravado
"Got what he wished for!"

"If you cut me
why I'd bleed
pure seawater!"

His voice scattered across
the landscape of her
memory.

Clouds tower over her
build themselves up before
becoming everything...anything.

Here a cloud pretending
to be a dinosaur
one a dead ringer for France.

Now a Salome
with the head of the Baptist
now a kitten.

"The mountains don't own me
never have
never will!"

Always paraphrases Psalm 22
or something...what was it now
"Deliver my soul...

'''from the mountains
my only one from the power
of the clouds!"

"Does it really go like that?"
we unable to quote
Scripture.

"It sure as hell does
well sorta...when
I says it!"

"Am of no country
born in the middle
of the Indian Ocean!"

We scatter her
ashes to the sea.
Taking back its own.

The boat changing its mind
drinking in the wind
delighting in itself.

Her ashes
running before the wind
before diving to the depths.

"Deliver my soul  from the sword;
my only one from the power of the dog."
the priest intones

silently I substitute
her clouds and mountains
her wrong footing the word of God.


"Then to the elements...be free!"
I offer
as if I were her Prospero.