August Kleinzahler: Land's End

This morning, early spring sunshine filled up our whole kitchen. Though we are in snow-covered Maine, and nowhere near heat or eucalyptus trees, it reminded me of the opening poem from August Kleinzahler's collection, Red Sauce, Whiskey, and Snow:


Land's End
by August Kleinzahler

This air,
you say, feels as if it hasn't touched land
for a thousand miles,

as surf sound washes through scrub
and eucalyptus,
whether ocean or wind in the trees

or both: the park's big windmill
turning overhead
while joggers circle the ball field

only a few yards off
this path secreted in growth and mist,
the feel of a long narrow theater set

about it here on the park's western edge
just in from the highway
then the moody swells of the Pacific.

The way the chill goes out of us
and the sweat comes up
as we drive back into the heat

and how I need to take you
to all the special places, or show
you where the fog rolls down

and breaks apart in these hills or where
that gorgeous little piano bridge
comes halfway through the song,

because when what has become dormant,
meager or hardened
passes through the electric

of you, the fugitive scattered pieces
are called back to their nature--
light pouring through muslin

in a strange, bare room.