Richard Norman - flotilla

I’m beginning to worry the bay is nothing but the night.

I know how darkness checks a wind.
Letting only moonlight pool and spread
Like the negative of ink on a blotting pad.

The lights in houses opposite go out.

I know how pines stand staggered by the dark between them.
In a dream they topple consecutively
Like show divers
And leave each island bare.

They form a flotilla and dam the big bay closed.
And then the earthwork men they come
And fill the water in.
The noise of stone saws searing.
The stones soak up the volume.
It takes so much to wake you.