“The city exists and it has a simple secret: it knows only departures, not returns.”

Invisible Cities, Italo Calvino

 

A full moon shines through the window gnawing at the bones of sleep.

The ocean breeze doesn’t always arrive to cool things off, so the window

is wide open even in July.  It’s simple, no AC where I’m staying which

was once an old stable for a manor.

 

All is silent after the last car drives away, when the din of house parties

and the bars farther down in town close you can hear a pin drop.

In the stillness, dew dropping softly from the trees rustling the leaves

make an echo.

 

On such nights I’d sometimes stir and walk the 20 minutes to Council Rock,

a large white-quartz boulder that’s luminous in streaming sunlight and moonlight.

Years later I can still see it with my eyes closed.

 

I can understand why the Indians gathered on this hill from across the island,

overlooking a pond and the ocean, to meet and discuss their important business.

Before the last groups disbanded and all was lost to time and memory.

 

From here they would have seen the first tall white-mast ships arrive

like clouds floating on the water, though of course not known the significance.

And the idea of cities was unknown to them, beyond living frames of reference.

 

Something different crossed the threshold, like a gripping wind

that wanted to swallow everything even the bones.

There was no shelter from that wind.

 

There is no way to see through the haze, like fog rolling in off the ocean

it envelops everything.  Even the present is distant, far away,

hidden in the depths.

 

I sometimes wonder how we came to be here and am not surprised

things don’t turn out as expected.  If I had thought to uncover

something in the depths that country is beyond me.  There are no bones.

But there’s always a border and a threshold, just no one knows where.

 

 

Stephen Cipot

Garden City Park/Montauk, 2006