Climb the great ladder out of the pit
                                            of yourself and man.
                                                               –Robinson Jeffers

i.

His arrival was surf, beating and altering
as clouds altered, dissolving and reshaping.
In a pillar of sunlight, fennel’s green glows, gauzy.
The blowzy peony luxuriates, bobbing in May’s wind.

Beaks weave nests, eggs opening into argosies of wings
leaving in the feeling of wind. In each minute, rows
of Hellenic pillars erode, masts of eras opening
as orchards bend, green-sailed in wind.

ii.

Wash of wind, the wash of stars drifts
over branches. An odyssey whispers leaves
 sifting with other leaves, lifting like photographs
of unremembered faces. Lactic, galactic night opens 

to a dustcloud’s torso exploring, milky surf unfurling
oceans of distance. Breath of the saga of now
lifts the brittle oakleaf, its gold hull sailing
into courses of the unsung wandering.