Poetry

Spring 2008

 

 

Ron Price

The Path of Vanishing

The sun rises over the East River, an estuary
gulls follow inland from the bay
to a small corner of the park I have found
by a logic few mathematicians would acknowledge.

I sit on a large rock near a snail
carrying its secret under an open shell, leaving
a path frail and glistering under the hungry
timbre, the cry of a gull flown inland.

I saw the ocean for the first time just after dawn.
That calm, undulant expanse
matched almost exactly the feel of my hand
on my father's chest at his wake. I was young,

leaning toward manhood as men lean toward
death and detritus the river carries
in its current. Young, out of breath, nauseous
and adrift on a course set north against the ocean's pull.

No longer a boy, I lean toward a snail
in light that makes estuary, stone and air one
with the gull's cry, and our lost, ordinary way shine
frail and glistering, and never again.

 

 

Back to Poetry