Landfall
(Harvey at Corpus Christi)
Launched from the center
of the sweaty swayback
of the dustbowl
driving to the sea
Texas is endless; brown, olive, bone
hills and beige flats,
griddle hot
a country of dead hours
of creosote bush and yucca
city sprawl, void and suburb eternal
before the silvered rim of Padre
shows hazy in the wave-trough,
a glint in the dead eye of
the Body of Christ.
How many times did we
drag the corpus of our
cross-nailed marriage over the plains,
one desert passing over another,
with what relief to leave that
four-wheeled cell
and feel a living air.
Then, bottle in hand, already lost,
you'd sit in your folding chair on a beach
so bright and primeval all
such things, like us, were anachronisms.
The boy would run from the war
such things, like us, were anachronisms.
The boy would run from the war
to the waves, freed and blazing delight
to slip into a salty blue singing that
drowned the sound of failure.
I'd walk up and down, in
and out of the surf, gripping shells'
nacred lifelines, finding a washing of watery
peace, transitory and recurrent
peace, transitory and recurrent
as the sky-swallowing
shadows of gulls cawking above.
I had no god then, and none
tonight,
yet I pray for that country
yet I pray for that country
as the vast weeping Eye crawls across it
with death and rage in its tears,
spilling blood or toy refineries
spilling blood or toy refineries
to soil and poison that white beach
where grace so waywardly hides
where grace so waywardly hides
giving her kiss to all flawed things.
~August 26, 2017
Optional Musical Accompaniment
Photos © joyannjones Corpus, Gull Shadows, circa 1986
