Laguna in September

Slow surf traces
with luminous chalk
the seal-brown ledges.

From your fingers
waves of clear music.

Under a heaving surface
the bronze reefs.

What is the color of a name?

Bougainvillea pours vivid
over pale cliffs
the sun bursts like a balloon.

From the stone-blue horizon
of this sea I turn

I strain to see you
prince of your trees and lawns
of eastern green.

High over tidepool rocks
wings splinter the sky
and veer descending;

I hear the faraway cry
of your winter axe.