John Ottey

Seaside Walk with Prufrock and Little Gidding

I wonder when I walk
what leaves are these
beneath my feet
speaking with the voice
of a half-remembered stranger
I met in sleep.
I listen to their metal hum
say I’ve been an easy tool
digging graves in rolled shirt sleeves,
burying one by one
certain certainties.
I sense again
my heart ticking
in some forgotten pocket.
I reply:
But you and I,
with wings spread against the evening sky,
are not the same stormy petrel.
On a promontory between two oceans
with water blown
white and black
blown back like hair
blown back,
you hear the world whimper
in the jaws
of angry seas.
I hear sea girls sing
on the waves
and in the breeze.

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