False summits, false horizons, and the sea
just beyond reach, McCool sleeps off the road:
back seat, Buick LeSabre, kind of old,
but classy, in its way. List of wildflowers
not yet checked off in toto, but the rain,
pace the weatherman, won’t disappoint.
His dream of being, being not yet set free,
the elementary ghosting of the trees—
their shadows under moonlight—ought to be
enough to get him grooving. Still McCool
stays true to some new music, melodies
that burst through thickets of his sleeping brain.
Of cantus firmus maybe not enough
has been made plain. Of plainsong maybe too
much has been said. McCool rides a prayer,
dreams how a couple days goofing around
might yet eke out a bit of space to play
the well-tempered clavier of onshore wind.
May’s accidental pleasing has him jazzed
almost beyond belief… Were he awake
he’d feel the wind of May rattling his cage
in time almost for one more random grab
at happiness, eternal, at the least,
conjoined with much new music by the sea.
For Rob Greenberg
V.25.2013