STEP ONE It's 6.25 and you wait for the wave to leap beneath your legs. And wait for what last night you dreamt, This clear thing you see now that's that bed you're dreaming in about some woman resting her head on your shoulder and you fold yourself into STEP TWO I would open the oven to let the heat out, And the food waiting. Its maw. Throwing heat. Meat on the floor. The mean tile. This chair sat in rain that I'd sat in. This rain had rained on me. This walk hadn't happened. Sun beamed on. Before prints were. He couldn't remember the word for wind so said air and gust and air he seemed to remember some where, air and downings.. You're taken to a wee house, and crossed a viaduct. And clowns fell over underneath once. And it's through a tunnel, And the old lady knows your dad and you don't know her, but she sits and, you see now she shakes, and you leave. Then you see the planes' land path instead. STEP THREE This spring bee came waving on the steps. Might crawl later to its old recess. Might flit by old thorns. Lend hardy feet to soft granite. . This spring bee. STEP FOUR First examine chrysanthemums. Then the globes of pomegranate, Apricots. The long note. The blank devil. The backwards flower. The brown dark. The apricots. The ledge. Then the morning, And a fern pond bouncing up as I went to get lost with hoverers. STEP FIVE This are these wee boxes. Try and open them and here's what's in. Folded things waiting Dusty stuff. That old photo with some old car you can't remember its owners name and its plate but the season is summer because look at everyone standing around in shorts and not not laughing STEP SIX I have an old, thick book on the Sea. Published in 1961 I would guess. It's in a wooden trunk in the shed, And I haven't held it in years. I should go out and lift the broken pots, rusty springs, scraps of carpet, plastic basin, picnic rug, rotting blankets, broken hedge trimmer, wine bottle, ribbed hose, air pump, chipped scraper, screwdriver, radio, tape, weedkiller. I should lift these and open the lid, And sift the books and cards and find the sea. STEP SEVEN It was on the And feathered down To the shallow river Gravelled and spoor speared. It was sliding And skinning And laughing. It sprung Leaps water from wood. Stands. And runs. Cross-eyed. Tries to swagger. Falls into a small embrace. Chases a wee ball to hurl at some foe. Gets to run. Gets to sit, learn, listen, listen. Gets to straighten and straight STEP EIGHT Look at this skin thing that's slipping away under the knife. There it runs after ice. Chasing the wooden bounce. Down in the fern garden nothing creeps yet. The air has stopped downloading.. So it's tar now. Tar now STEP NINE The caterpillar has a drip of milk in its gut. The painted monkey draws down the blind. The macaw muzzles a cherry. The fish has one eye on the weed. The yellow horned goat wields a razor blade. I can see only the tail of the dig Under the red sun and yellow sky. I can't see the mule. The stone toad is bug eyed. The mouse looks down and down. The rabbit looks beneath the red sun and the blue sky. The cow has a blue crown. The cat holds the fish and has two white eyes on the caterpillar. The air furls unfurls The sugar papercovers almost all. STEP TEN Inhale. Bow. Un wind. Gathered. Watching. Bend. Bend. Unwind. Stretch now. There it goes.. Snow berry. White beam. A three sided mirror repels the fox who can lie beneath wind but sniffs its meandering and stillness.