[Jim Moonan]

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(Note: I used "you" vs, "N" in commenting because I feel I can speak directly to the poem's protagonist. I use "me" vs. "reader" because I feel a direct connection to what the poem is saying.)

It reads beautifully on first pass. Second pass even more-so. I can see myself on the beach at a distance from you. We've both arrived there having experienced dissimilar journeys, though we are at the same turn.

Inventory of a sort is being taken. You are alive to tell of your journeys that have passed between your fingers like water. You wonder where you'll go next. You feel emptied of everything but now.

These parts:

spun journeys
Such good double entendre

Dead like old wood on a beach"
implies that the deadwood has journeyed far to get where it has gotten with nothing remaining that tells of its life's journey that has ended stranded on a beach. Beautiful.

How did so much end with nothing to say?
Is a devastating thought.

I was instructed to remember how time is collected—there is no end to the ways to divide and collect what cannot be held.
All your teachings, knowledge acquired, experiences accumulated — all of that feels for nought. But you are there. Waiting. Alive. Hoping for someone or something to arrive and take you further.

The empty journeys I took up and down the globe are gone. No circumference was discovered.
The expansive geography of this is wonderful.


The final image is one that sweeps aside the inevitable and instead readies itself for more.

It's really a beautiful moment of a poem.

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