there comes a time when all of the qualia of experience
have been explored turned over in the surf and soft sand
of North Carolina’s Outer Banks where the broken nautilus shell
is nudged about by blue then green sun drenched waves again
pelicans a formation of three just offset a bit follow a blinding path
of reflected noon day sun disappear around a distant wharf and here
everyone walking the beach their panting dogs wheeling gulls and half a mile offshore
a parasail pulls a skier high into the sky above the tumbled cache of shells
we collected rubbing the iridescent gleam where flesh was recently at home

one pauses above the page suspended squinting into the hazy distant horizon
for the word to express the totality of it all not a gestalt it must retain
all parts the way they are held easily even now all at once while we earnestly seek
that expression in which the image conveys the feeling and still there is only
unfilled white space until an immeasurable time finally comes at last while
sitting peering toward the boundary of our symbols crumbling with inadequacy

metaphor unwinds within eons which never existed we can take our time full stop
the distance that stretched before and behind is in the single period that is now
the reason for creating our context stretches contentedly, relaxed and naked upon soft beach

©John Greenleaf-Maple – text and art 6/26/17