HOW I ONCE SAW THE PELICAN AS ETERNAL SYMBOL, NOT VICTIM OF THE OIL SPILL Poem by peter cooley

Everything just in miracle as planned
so long as I keep focused on what's here,
refusing to reach beyond this moment—
oh tell the truth, it's trying to refuse
the tide of the white page, running in, out,
whose whitecaps could be future or the past.

But what I mean by miracle is just
the chance to be—now—for a little time,
to know, unlike the animals, how brief—

when I count, I could multiply the hours
I've spent on earth, how few can still remain.

This pelican lifting above the tides,
perilous beauty of his sun-struck flight
beyond my wings' sudden imaginings-
he's beauty without past or future tense.
I'll never want that. Counting puts me here—