the waves are the practice of the ocean <br > for my son Ari; Greyston: sesshin 5182<br > here， happy outside of pursuits<br > 1 see you lift up your red canoe， you in this still<br > are lifting up your red canoe<br > your powerful canoe companion of the Temagami Wilderness assists，<br > bears the four sacks， 2personals， 1 heavy， onesemi-heavy--<br > your companion Mark is giving you help<br > I have wanted to give you this poem<br > for 13 years， since you were 5， and now，<br > free now of my terror for your life<br > I can make and offer the fluid confirming of this verse;<br > the pain in my knees and lower thighs and ankles<br > remembers you in your antic fortress， your attic<br > closet bed-room years， you and Girl<br > as if by the wardening moat you invented<br > made anxiously safe up high and deep in<br > and my heart bearing you as if， in a high-pulse<br > of endlessly heavy white，<br > two floors of Atlantic separated you from me<br > myself never so alone as with you high in the fort<br > controlling your floating push-button eyrie.<br > here outside of pursuits at Greyston sesshin， this sleeping-bag cellar，<br >my knees and thighs have woken me at 2:25 a.m.， or<br >the sweetness of my stereopticon of you<br >woke me， is simple， and casts no shadow， it casts no light either.<br >it is in my mind like my mind. like my body where on my back<br >in two places equidistant from my spine<br >between my neck and shoulder the pain of Shoro s<br >keisaku-blows also maps like the sculpture inside Rodin s stone<br >the curve of his finger s stratigraphy where he barely positioned me<br >before he bowed to my bow after the blows， whoever asks. whoever<br >gives， one. you.<br > you d given yourself a cuneiform of cuts<br >on your forearms last June<br >swellings of the finger-joints from chops at the freezer door，<br >part of your rite， myself in despair seeing challenge and a fall into<br >your desecration of skin and cartilage and on your left biceps<br >