At the height of an early morning tide,
I sit in the cockpit of Pneuma.
Facing west to where the light streaking
from behind me breaks on the sharp snow
peaks of the Olympics, I lean
my weight against all that has made me
what I am.  Though my back is turned
I own the land and history
that has brought me here.  Home is east 
in a wide valley beside a north
running river.  I know who I am.

But here in the summer morning I float,
moored at the edge of hope.
Across the Sound, the mountains
loom like Paradise in my imagination --
in the world.  By afternoon they
will be gone, lost in haze or simply
hidden by the breakwater as the tide
falls and my spirit settles
into the lassitude of this summer day.

More than once I have felt the wind
swell the sail furled above my head
and drive us far into the wild.
But I am done, content to sit here
in the calm and wait and watch.
It is not now as once it might have been.

One spring I rode the ferry to Winslow,
then drove a rented car north, bridged
the Hood Canal, skimmed along
the Strait of Juan de Fuca,
turned south and climbed 6000 feet
into the late snow, still falling
on Hurricane Ridge.  I drove
for vision's sake, to see
and know the height I longed for
from the shore.  At the road's end,
I stepped into the cold.  elusive
in the swirl, the mountain hid itself
and sent me weaving back to sea
level where I have come to rest.

What we see, we see from afar,
catch briefly on a rising tide
or glimpse in the parting of a cloud.
So are we blessed.
So is our wholeness found.

                                                           John Leax