ROAD CREW                                             

The old man with the bent back

is still laying asphalt

but the young guys

are sprawled across the grassy median,

shirts off, shovels down,

toasting in the sun.

Who cares where tax dollars go

when there's brown muscle to loll,

chest hairs to flutter,

a cigarette in a sleepy mouth

and the lungs to deal with its poisons.

They figure let those near death

operate the machinery.

The years stretch out ahead of us.

So let's stretch out like years.

ADAPTATIONS

We're descended from the ocean, he says.

So this is more than just a stroll along the beach.

It's a family reunion.

That's not a tide-pool, that's a gene pool.

So who can explain the crab that crawls out of it,

darts across the sand?

I have to admit the water soothes with its coolness.

And, out farther, the glittering jewel box,

is more pleasing to the eye than mirrors.

But walking with a scientist has its downside.

Germ-plasma theory lies uneasily beside

bronze beauties on the beach.

But for a mile or two along the shore,

I can live with Darwin, Linnaeus and Lamarck

and their learned say in my family tree.

Sea air clears my head ceaselessly.

No laws of organic life stay for long.

Meanwhile, waves retreat, leave a wake of

to be pecked at by plovers.

So which of my ancestors

was food for what sea-bird?

I've no idea where we come from

but the sea's a good choice:

the surface calm, incessant rhythms underneath,

the foam at the edges,

even that crusty taste of salt.

Sure sometimes rough weather

takes this peace in hand

and riles it into

angry ten foot breakers, crazed riptides.

But I've no need to be here then.

I've already made those adaptations.