(letters to a wife, found in a box)
"He knew nothing to do but inhabit the paradoxes."--William McIlvanney
Letter 6
Homecoming and Coda: 嫦娥
The Final Letter
Dear 翼, 兔子
The pacific shells up the tales carried on the back of what is awashed,
picked up forlorn and plated between us.
Turn, swerve, propinquities’ night,
Beneath the wing of the clipped church balustrade, you pointed toward a verse of light.
And I was undone
And the land channels wide
And the sea lesson’s he lifer teeth
Wearied and world-wet, there is the light and
Finally
From this far-green ocean, and past the long, cold nose of that island off the port of my ship,
I head, finally, toward the West, past the whispering lighthouse and damp promontory:
All this reminds me that I am finally steering correctly and my crew is rejoicing
And all in my that is nautical is begin to tether.
There along the coast, my life,
Wait for me and signal your love across the waves, as sea spray and whisper,
Alas, Im almost there,
Bent but unbroken and unbowed and now
Beloved.
I am winging across the deep, like a gull far from sleep,
and finally at last, we are
Upon the long written and long promised tale:
I am coming home to you.
