Ode to Miss Oceana Waters

Finding what you need

allowing help to arrive.

Oceana sits with me because i am calm.

“We don’t say sorry,

we say pardon me,”

and no matter who you are

there is a place to question

if your pillow is good enough to support you.

Oh Oceana Waters!

Your layers cascade down your sides,

you arrive to show me honor and depth and breadth

on the bench

where life seats us sometimes

so we can reach with interpretation

into our existence as an opera box.

Good view, and chuckle.

We can be sure of little, but we can be sure of respect

to a friend far off who is passing through the park

Oceana points coyly,

“I’m trying to get this lady to adopt me!”

but nothing is asked of me except to see

some Vivienne Westwood dresses on my phone.

Nothing is asked of me except a few questions.

And here is a person I cannot lie to, perusing the designs.

When they ask my name, I say, and I can tell they’ve lived a long life.

“I am not so young,” they say.

Wearing ruffles like a baby in a baptism gown,

you’d never know they didn’t feel old

except to admit life has worn them down

spoken away, stifled brilliance,

to an audience of a crack in the ground.