Oceanside

I am terrible at certain things
which I should be good at
by now — all the years
in a heap strive to make me
at least competent and I should be
a master or so you would think —

but the list grows and grows
and I fail so often, even recalling them
imperfectly, even recalling them
incompletely or not at all; in fact
when I try to

I am remarkably bliss-filled, let them
go, let them fall from my head like feathers
from a bird, sometimes a drab robin,
rarely a vibrant cardinal, and once
there was a hawk feather  — this is
where my dreams have brought me:

years heaped up and up but dissolving
like castles, crude or elaborate in the waves
that lap this shore until my competence
or mastery do not matter anymore

and an hour from now in the sunset
it will be gone, all of it will be gone
and I will sit back, a neophyte,
marveling that memories do not matter
while the sun still is winter-brilliant
and I have time, short time to make more.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
onward.
T