The Pontificators

This poem is inspired by a man who lived near us on Sauvie Island, and who walked the beach every day with his Dog, Little Bear.

William walks the beach to look for feathers.
He holds each one against the sky, then runs
its vanes between pinched fingers
before he puts it in his pouch. Most
are from gulls, but sometimes wind
sends eagle feathers down to the sand.

Shells rattle in his pouch as well,
with clicking bits of bone and twisted
sticks of driftwood, river-washed and weirdly shaped.
William glues these things together, lashes them
with strips of leather. “Fetishes,” he says.
“I sell them on the Internet.”

Blond hair has gone to gray on sunburned skin.
“Sometimes you have to quit your job
to give your spirit room to move and tell you
God is everywhere.” He rents a tumbled trailer
down the beach, pays with prophecy
and his disability check. “It’s all in letting go
of Earth and all this shit.”

He slips a hand inside the pouch,
pulls a sandy feather out,
holds it to his ear and nods.

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 30th, 2009 at 11:51 am and is filed under Alvin, Poetry, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.