BE
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The Poem
BE
This is what Ace knows:he is coming back.He always comes back.He paddles out,takes in the swell,reads the water the way he read everything —completely, at speed,already knowing what he’s going to dobefore the wave decides.
Ace is in the truck.Ace is certain.
The sky this morning is every colorthat has ever existed in a California dawn —red and gold and every pink between them,the blues of the water running into the blues of the airuntil there is no edge, no border,no place where the ocean stopsand the sky begins.Just color. Just light.Just a morning that doesn’t know it’s the last one of anything.Mornings never do.
He is out there reading the swellthe way he read everything —100, determined,already calculating what comes nextbefore this is finished being beautiful.
Reading the swell
The portal is small and red-framed,hanging in the colored morningthe way a door appears in a dream —obvious, inevitable,as if it was always thereand you just weren’t looking at the right part of the sky.He was always looking at the right part of the sky.
A door appears in a dream
I don’t know what’s on the other side.I know he wasn’t afraid of it.I know he looked at itthe way he looked at everything most people look away from —directly,with the calm of someone who has done the math,liked the answer,and is waiting for the right moment to commit.He always committed.
Ace doesn’t negotiate.Ace doesn’t ask for evidence.Ace sits in the truck in the morning light and waits —because waiting is the whole joband he is doing it the way his person did everything.Completely.
The colors will go on.The swell will go on.The portal will hang in the California morningfor anyone willing to paddle that far out and look up.Most won’t.
He went out at 100with his whole chest opento whatever the ocean, the sky, the colored morning had to offer —not halfway —all the way through the door.
Ace is in the truck.
The morning is very beautiful.
The arrangement stands.