ISSUE 11

Nancy Cherry 

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Limantour Beach—A Song of Affect

A tennis ball, bleaching in the sand, is singing from the inside out,
             and sand is singing to the sun.

Seaweed singing of the sea undoes the knots of air above. The loosened

             knots are singing of tomorrow, and tomorrow

is singing of today. The sea sings white out loud and blue behind,

             and blue is singing to the sky.

The horizon’s telling tales to another world—that world is spinning

             out of sight. The grass is standing up to sing—

a choir of green, a little wind that lightly wraps the shore. Fish

             are singing to the sea all they know of salt

while salt is singing to the earth of buoyancy and drought. Phoebes

sing beneath the bush, and crickets sing to crows.

The wind is singing on the page, the page sings to the ink. My shadow’s
             singing to the past and the past is incomplete.
The sun sings on in spite of this—it scorches as it warms. The axis
             sings inside the Earth, and planets sing 

to stone and ice. The moon pulls back and forth—
             the oceans can’t resist. The night is singing to the light
and then it’s singing to the cliffs. A boy is singing from below—

             he holds a walking stick. The grass is singing into seed,
and sand is singing to our feet. Each green is singing wild and loud—

             jacket, zipper, tuft of grass. And in the sand,

the tennis ball is singing to itself.

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Maybe "zipper, fabric, tuft of grass."? "Fabric" can add that extra layer of meaning. 

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