Mattapoisett Once

(I don’t remember when I wrote this; it must have been sometime when I was in my hometown. Montaup, the former center of Wampanoag culture, is visible across the bay from the peninsula I grew up on, Gardner’s Neck, which was once Mattapoisett Neck.)

The moon gives space
An intimate immensity.
The wind and I descend to the wet shore
Unsure of what once was.

We christened fallen Montaup
‘Mount Hope’ of a grave
Pointing almost imperceptibly
Upwards…

Consciousness always follows us.
Act first.
Language listens to itself and to you
And doesn’t know how to respond.

The best characters I meet are most myself.