A Gusty Pier on a Winter’s Day

A flock of gulls rises from a choppy sea, 
hangs aloft in abeyance – a distraction,  
the outpouring of a cut, winter’s anguish; 
in the confusion, disarrangement.  

What is always present, just further – 
the background, the canvas – disappears,  
as if it never was. When it is overlooked,  
or overlayed, by gulls, for example,  

the seen is always via a detour: 
it has already been; no more smooth stones, 
drifts of kelp on the shore; 
and so life becomes a flock of gulls.   

Even when you shut your eyes, dream: gulls,  
gulls, gulls. As if there is nothing more to see, 
as if the journey has finished; 
yet it persists, always unfolding. 

An opening, a way out: to see the flock depart,   
and at the same time, the unending sea.