A wooden pallet
the kind forklifts use
has been tide-tossed here and there on the beach
for a couple of weeks now
slowly disintegrating
splintering
adorned with seaweed
it imposes a geometry on the landscape
like the soccer ball, the pingpong ball, the notebooks, the dented beer cartons
Well
There is geometry everywhere, fractals and complex curves
waves and solids and the arcs of bird wings
We humans are so damn simple
I am simple
I pick out of this landscape those points of purity that my kind likes to generate
the white boats on the water
the airplane darts thrown through clouds,
the monotonous drone of engine, leaf blower, railroad car
But as I approach the foam of my mortal end
the algal decay
the splintering of my wood
I have so much to learn about irregularity,
so much of regularity to release
While the palette’s parallel slats may be
the last part of its form to collapse,
they will collapse, and so will all my thinking
Composed July 14, 2025