Nepenthe

Sitting among the crows and hawks,

we drink our after-lunch coffee.

She says that I'm more the poet than she,

and looks at me blankly.

As she objects that her eyes are behind shaded glasses,

that the blankness in my own mind,

I listen.

I study the notion for a while and look out on the ocean fog

rolling in beneath a craggy hilltop.

I am slowly learning a new language.

Soon we will be covered in a mist as we negotiate

a steep coastal road.

It is hot, and well must still get a pie to bring with us.