Mettle to Meddle

**Mettle to Meddle**

*By Stephen Sekula*

He stepped atop the atoll,

was it four years to the day?

A little dog set near the shore,

a shore that tasted both

the ebb and flow of time

and waves

He spoke of bird, of beak, of barnacle,

collected by the shore,

a shore four years and counting

from anything like home

“There is a plan, there is a plan,

get down on bended knee.”

But if between an ape or a man

who uses not his mental faculty,

descended from ape I’d surely

rather be.