The sun sets in the ocean

So many sit under shirts

Shame-based Shirtshaped lampshades

Hiding the stony brilliance of Apollo

That is our birthright

My feet may touch that cold water river

But they won’t stop until they hit bottom

It’s a good way to drown

Vuong’s river becomes Hogans

Like those bones I lay

Exposed to the water

And it washed the dirt away

Now, here, it’s so much deeper.

I no longer have to try to drown

I cannot have both breath and bottom

We are the twelve year old

Middle child of God

With a bitter admiration for older angel

And brutal love for younger animal

The water is getting deeper

The place of neither breath nor bottom

Is getting larger

The boat, untethered, drunk

The sun, shining, undeterred by shameclouds

I may have witnessed

The last time old Barney iced over.

https://earthweal.com/2023/01/02/ministering-the-future/ More inspired by Earthweal.

Referenced poems:

ARCHAIC TORSO OF APOLLO -Rilke

THE BEGINNING OF THE BEGINNING – Phuong T. Vuong

BONES AT THE RIVER – Linda Hogan

THE DRUNKEN BOAT – Rimbaud

“old Barney“ is the Barnegat Bay in New Jersey, USA which got a half inch of ice over it during a cold snap in December of 2022

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