Unforgetting

The arc and light and breadth and nothing kempt,
Flat shining fields of sand, the shallow-carving
Tigris and Euphrates of the beach streams
Where individual flying grains are seen,
The wet compactions out of which grew keeps
I slopped moat water on at the end of the day,
Playing decay and knowing I was loved,
Coves where my face would drop past the waterline
Into the wallowing playfully-deadly force,
Blue-black rock, its surface softened by water,
Broad outcrops, models of a savage planet,
Clammy caves whose ground no man had trod—
A language I absorbed, forgot I knew,
Restarting after a sleepy train’s long snaking.