Once, while lying on a beach up north in California, I saw a whale’s spout, an explosion of released water, a trumpet’s blurt blasting from underneath the thick blue carpet of Pacific Ocean, a quick glimpse—a firefly’s blink-flash, the

He asks me for a song, so I sing one just for him. I sing of these unholy gifts stolen from within the refuge of  music. A pale moon loiters among the geometry of stars. They know about us: