Common Loon

Mindless, the tide insists that the body
continue to move ever so slightly
in the spot where it wedged on the rocks.

The wear of water hasn't softened its sheer.
Its wings, unbroken, stay tucked to its sides.
And its webbed feet are stretched and spread

as if sometime in the storm last night
—overwhelmed by wave and wind—
the loon had gone under in fast pursuit

and just kept hunting:
chasing the fury that moves through the quiet
that's always under the fury above.

Wedged, now, at the edge of the sea,
the loon still is what it was.
And the tide keeps asking its mindless question.

Copyright © 2008 Daniel Wolff All rights reserved
from Western Humanities Review
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission