July 2, 2003

When the pollen lands in the water, the water looks soupy,
like pea soup with green and yellow peas, with the seaweed floating
between its green and gold cloud, a tangled vegetative island,
small Sargasso sea bobbing to the waves. The waves are indolent,
the water warm in the heat wave, the landscape unusually lush,
the reeds wave by the cove, the petals of the rose hip flowers blow which away,
the children sleep as they’re carted along the footpath in their carriages
by parents who are dreaming of palaces, of sitting in an easy chair by the fireplace,
their child pushing the calculator’s keypad before the maple roll-top desk,
family heirloom or a real find at a flea market. Of a sandcastle in Falmouth
with lions’ heads by the entrance which needs to be destroyed because of the cost of security–
to protect it from destruction the sand castle needs to be demolished.
Why not invite the would-be hooligans in to do the job?
The grandeur of the fantasy spires invites its own destruction,
although the castle doesn’t have an interior for books or treasure.
The leonine faces melt as of made of wax. A shovel undoes the design,
a boot imprints a tread upon its minaret-like dome that in the mind of its maker was gilded,
like domes in St. Petersburg, like Hagia Sophia, the spires beneath which pigeons
might have coasted choked by the medium, a coarse sand mixed with gravel and pebbles.