DD 9/23/03 SAND ROADS BY MARGE PIERCY

From "Sand Roads"
By Marge Piercy
You are standing too tall for
this landscape. Lie down.
Let the grass blow
over you. Let the plover
pipe, the kestrel stand beating its wings
in the air, the wolf spider
come to the door of its burrow,
the mouse nibble on
your toe. Let the beach pea
entangle your legs in its vine
and ring you with purple blossoms.
Now get up slowly
and seek a way down off the dunes,
carefully: your heavy feet
assault the balance.
Come down on the bench
of the great beach arching
away into fog.
Lie down before the ocean.
It rises over you, it stands
hissing and spreading its
cobalt hood, rattling
its pebbles.
Cold it is and its rhythm
as it eats away at the beach,
as it washes the dunes out to sea
to build new spits and islands,
enters your blood and slows
the beat of that newish contraption
your heart controlling the waves
of your inward salt sea.
Let your mind open
like a clam when the waters
slide back to feed it.
Flow out to the ancient cold
mothering embrace, cold
and weightless yourself
as a fish, over the buried
wrecks. Then with respect
let the breakers drive you
up and out into
the heavy air, your heart
pounding. The warm scratchy sand
like a receiving blanket
holds you up gasping with life.