Fool/Poet

My fingers sing of my craft –
Ink stained and swollen;
My toes tread through leaves of grass,
Dream of all the places I’ve shown them.

I’m stained by the lowly whisper of the sea –
Or a lone white speck lofting just above the waves;
I stare out and strain –
I hear each word cry out the same,
Cry out like so many before,
Dry out on the sand having just crept free to shore.

A finger or two
Crawls between me and you,
Between the deepest darkest places,
Or that gentle startling hue of the horizon
Between the sky and the water,
Between a mother and father,
Between young lovers interlocked
On the edge of the dock
Clamoring over each others bodies well after the clock strikes two.

I return to the dream
Just the way it seemed,
So plastic, so placid, so anxiously clean.
I returned to the sea,
Washed in the water,
Returned to the state,
Some predestined fate,
Some sailboat summer I find only in sleep.

So I tear to my toes,
Shiver in the sunlight,
The moon beams keep me warm as I swim through the night.
When I touch land again,
Bare feet in the sand,
I clean my fingers and wash my hands,
Yet the ink beneath my nails still lingers.

My fingers sing of my craft –
Ink stained and swollen;
My toes tread through leaves of grass,
Dream of all the places I’ve yet to show them.