Scargo Tower, Looking West

On the east coast by the bay at the top
of a hill overlooking a lake filled they say

when a great whale thrown by a winter storm
crashed there or filled they say by the tears

of a young woman from the Scargo tribe
when it was clear her life would not be the same

and over the belt of a waist-high stone wall at the top
of a tower there though you are looking west

with me the width of a continent is a thread across
the horizon and above it the sun lowers itself

ablaze on the bay before it and again on the lake
of tears or it is the resigned eye of the whale still

lying there its shape waiting for the tide to bring it
back I have seen the sun set over two bodies

of water the strip of land scrub oak and pine between them
wider than the continent beyond a hundred times

from here I have seen the riotous light lean against clouds
knowing my home was here above the crown

of the highest tree I’ve chatted with tourists taken pictures
for them stood here long after they have left

felt the wind rush in over the trees gathering stones
when it was clear my life would not be the same

and now I am coming back again to this stone place
where looking over endless land you see nothing

but water and sky and the wide scrim
of a welcoming light that does not remember me