Stony Point

by Jamie Parsley

The wind moves not
toward here but away,
up the shore from this
gathering of boulders
and this one lone pine,
its skeletal roots exposed
to the upward grasp
of the water.

I will leave here
one day never to return.
I will get up from this place
I called my own and never
again return, not leaving
any trace of myself behind—
not one thing that stone-
cold tides and persistent
winters can’t dispose of.
Even then, all will be well.
It will be good to go from here
and to be truly gone—
to not leave anything
that can be traced or
examined or exposed
like this day once
the sun unveils itself.

It will be enough to be
as the wind is in this place—
unleashed here—
an exhausting presence
that completely fills the air
and then is gone.
It will be good to be
as the clouds I remember
hanging above me the first day
I came here. They are gone now—
replaced by ghostly shadows
I find familiar
and yet strangely distant
in a familial sort of way.

The wind moves not
toward here but away,
up the shore toward that place
I have been headed toward
all my life.