stonepicnicking_okapi

What I am appreciating most about the poem-a-day is the little blurb after the poem about the poem. The first poem was inspired by the second.

alameda point by David Maduli

—after lucille clifton

the estuary opens to the bay
and the bay stretches into the pacific and so on
therefore and such-and-such,
none of them empty or full
in the way no frame can minimize nor contain horizon—
yet the ocean can be it, even when sky
and sea are the same late summer gray
they blend together erasing, making
each other. the humpback whale
breaching the slate screen is the only
one who knows the tension between.
here arrive two children winding bikes
on the path to the point passing succulents
and ground squirrels, and three pelicans
follow in spinning dives to slash
down on this estuary guarded
by gurgling sea lions. the children
collecting rocks and examining mussel shells,
millennia in their hands, nod to each other and laugh
racing childhood to the pier’s edge.

the mississippi river empties into the gulf by Lucille Clifton

and the gulf enters the sea and so forth,
none of them emptying anything,
all of them carrying yesterday
forever on their white tipped backs,
all of them dragging forward tomorrow
. it is the great circulation
of the earth's body, like the blood
of the gods, this river in which the past
is always flowing. every water
is the same water coming round.
everyday someone is standing on the edge
of this river, staring into time,
whispering mistakenly:
only here. only now.