Here, where tracks trail
sand, the high-giant mountains
tower. Arid bearers, shielding a shore.

I travel with arrows, a thinker in charge
but, when I’m not sure what to think
and the heavy heart carries away,
on heavy legs, then is when I bless

an unparaphrasable water fall, catching
my quicksandy morning, steering at
shadows in a Pacific green,

folding bright with blues. And when I up
my mind to the Fan Palms, then
the water-wind charts bolt back, like
tidemarks on soft skin — well, you

want to figure, what I deserve?
A collection of cornered cities, perfect
clouds on a boardwalk,

a precious day ahead. Without hesitation,
I park at back-alley-songs, but some
times the still dark determines delay,
free are shades never.

A pelican pair dance their angle.
The long run, I’d love to lack form. Must be
the melancholy for places, I didn’t age.

Kate Copeland’s love for languages led her to linguistics & teaching, her love for art & water to poetry. She is a curator-editor for The Ekphrastic Review, and runs workshops & open-mics for several writing networks. Find her poems: Kate Copeland Instagram & TER, WildfireWords, Gleam, Metphrastics, Hedgehog Press [a.o.]; her audio-poetry-book Caterpillar Tracks will go public in autumn, thanks to WildfireWords.