Puerto Morelos Dawn
Tag Archives: Ocean
A STONEBOAT STORY
A STONEBOAT STORY
Rough planks across two wood-beam runners
low and tough enough to tip a heavy rock on
or haul the cleanings of the stalls in winter
Learning to stand in loose-kneed balance
full speed behind fast homing horse
across the frozen tracks and turds
on the way back to the barn
Buff off of Oahu teaching me to surf
I think “Just like this”
until the big wave comes and says “Not quite”
INDIAN RIVER, ONTARIO 2004
INDIAN RIVER, ONTARIO 2004
Above waterfall
In circle of highest pine
green showers down
By the waterfall
body rests in hammock
cells rush to the sea
Below waterfall
power beyond soap and rub
washes off city
Lying by the bank
trees holding blue hammock
lift it to the sky
Indian River
Great Blue Heron stands
wise Tibetan monk
MARY OLIVER
MARY OLIVER
Of all the poets I admire
only one did I envy
How she could take us all on her journey
remind us of the wild beauty of our lives
and the soft animal of our bodies
It is disowned parts of us I know
that we hold too high or low
And yet I wanted to go where she could go
This year in the merry month of May
on a trip in search of other things
a book I didn’t know she’d written
in a town where I didn’t know she lived
I hung five days like her hummingbird
on the green wheel of its wings
Her flowers were my food
her town became my town
her dunes became my dunes
Sip by sip on that Cape Cod shore
I began to envy her less
and love her more
And that pretty green stone
I was taking with me
I threw it back into the sea
THE BELLS OF LE CROTOY
THE BELLS OF LE CROTOY
In the little village by the Baie
bells still wake you every day
And since not all the churches agree
we wait while each has its pretty say
then snuggle back for a little nap
because a bell is just a bell
and we’re on holiday
If we had really listened
we might have have heard them say
We are the bells Jeanne d’Arc heard
breaking over walls of prison stone
the morning of her walk to Rouen
and then never heard again
We are the bells Jules Verne heard
rattling rough shuttered windows
get up lazy writer and grasp that pen
you have leagues to write ‘fore you rest again
We are the bells that the fishermen heard
on the mornings behind their names
on the monument to men lost at sea
heard last before going to sea
GREECE 2001
GREECE 2001
We take the boat back to Athens
cold and windy and a little rough
Dorsey lies down on the way
If she is Helen returned
she might again cause the launching
of a thousand ships
but she would not sail on one
I have an ouzo and man the bow
swells rising through my feet
feeling the eternity of the sea
When the islands are out of site
I still feel and could steer
by the shape of the winds
A Poem Before Holland
A POEM BEFORE HOLLAND
I travel to Holland
on wings of a childhood story
silver skates and finger in a dike
To lands wrestled from an angry sea
a sea that dearly wants them back
Unceasing vigilance to keep the prize
a dark line drawn across their eyes
I see windmills chop the salt wet air
Art and flowers leaping up in faith
behind thin walls
Back to the little boy and the dike again
legal drugs and red lights in the rain
These are a fair and sturdy people
I like them now, and I like how
In a land where children must
so often act as men
They do not pass acts that treat
their men as children
CALIFORNIA HWY #1
CALIFORNIA HWY #1
Pacific coasts by
SALMON LEAPING
SALMON LEAPING
In the very center of New Brunswick
Half way between the equator
and the north pole
Half way up the river Mirimichi
Half way between the spawning grounds and
the sea the salmon stop to rest in quiet pools
As you watch, one or two or three
will leap high above the water, twist in the
air and splash down again
I asked the best guide on the river
and the best outfitter too
Why do they jump like that?
They said nobody knew
I suspect it’s all part of something simple
that has always been true
There’s just a lot of joy in doing
what you were born to do