on beaches where waves roll in sibilant on the sand
or rooftops where moonlight glistens on miles of land
i'm pressing through shadows, i'm slipping through doors
i'm finding the crossings from city to shore

when we're young we sing novels, walk stories, rent plays
and assume they'll stay with us through nights and long days
in age dramas leave us, comedies will die laughing
and the walks and the songs and the spaces are lacking

so i'm climbing stairwells and swinging through alleys
i'm circling tall mountains and flooding dry valleys
to find the one source where the phrases are fresh,
to bind words to my heart and rend paragraphs with flesh.