I went to the ocean

I went to the ocean on a particularly lustrous morning,

It was washed in all the softened, secondhand light

That the new sun, so far away, could yield.

I felt it pull at my ankles on the sand,

To the edge of that great, wide water and

Before my eyes, a hundred gulls lifted in unison:

Church is out, it seems; the day begins;

I had been asking for happiness as we all do,

Daily, carelessly, and without knowing –

So it’s the prayer that put me into my boots,

Then into my car, and out there to the line in the sand

Where it was answered, by the blush of heady light and the rush of the gulls,

To touch me like someone new who brushes your

Shoulder in those first brave and leaning steps into each other–

What I’m saying, is,

So strong is its pull,

We will always walk into our joy.