Three Poems by Nils Peterson
By the Sea
To watch a seagull fly overhead,
a girl child on the beach in red pajamas
tilts her head back and back,
impossibly back to anyone a second older.
Now she digs a hole
tossing the sand back between her legs
as if her hands were forepaws.
Now she sits on her haunches
in the hole and draws a circle
all about herself.
Now she is safe from everything.
With William
With Black William, half Lab and half
Golden Retriever, at the percolation ponds.
He is learning he likes the water and stands in it
up to his chest, snaps three times at the midges, then
erupts up the bank in a great larruping horsey gallop
surrounded for a moment by a fine thin silvery shield
of water curved like the battle shields of the Assyrians.
Tao from a Train Window
……….. a white cow
……….. picks up her
……….. right foot and
……….. places it
……….. down again.
from: All the Marvelous Stuff
Caesura Editions, Poetry Center of San José, 2019