Unforgetting
The arc and light and breadth and nothing kempt,Flat shining fields of sand, the shallow-carvingTigris and Euphrates of the beach streamsWhere individual flying grains are seen,The wet compactions out of which grew keepsI slopped moat water on at the end of the day,Playing decay and knowing I was loved,Coves where my face would drop past the waterlineInto the wallowing playfully-deadly force,Blue-black rock, its surface softened by water,Broad outcrops, models of a savage planet,Clammy caves whose ground no man had trod—A language I absorbed, forgot I knew,Restarting after a sleepy train’s long snaking.