It is a hard rain that uncovers the morose
pelting threats of ice and slick leaves in the night
the simple surf sounds in the dark, shushing you
Be still and walk if you have to
on slight sand and even that always
moving away with the wind.

Notice there is a pure absence of those people
that enjoy things.  They are gone to New Jersey
They are gone to Bumblefuck, Iowa – they are
gone to a collision of mile-high glaciers in a barren
valley in the Pleistocene; they strike only white
rocks to make a fire start, burning the hair of the women.
Theirs was a completely real danger.
None of those ancient people would ever consider suicide
that notion was utterly unknown to them.  They collected rocks.

Yes, I know there are aviators, somewhere.
They call a flat deck at three thousand feet
all gray mists and putrid light below that.
But they have propellers – that which propels.
And they land and land
and they walk, walk, walk towards a hanger full
of possible friends with coffee, where they will
recount all the air and all the altitudes of flying while
Their gray airplanes tick in the cooling sky.