Tag: ocean

now

the moment stood
and faced the sea; we called it
faith-breaker, the hiss
of sand’s what god? where?

we held our freedom in both hands
shook it out: to walk slowly on
wave-wise; to curl in again
with mountain-root song

Thanks and apologies to Kerfe, because I stole from her poem.

Gokstad

A thousand years buried black beneath king’s
mound; ribs, timbers rotting, our ship—
oarsmen long fallen, scattered like their gold

Bread, beer, sword—but never enough gold
in blood-spattered piles, enough to make us kings
so bold and glory-lusting we fitted our ship

shields hung out, oars locked in, then how our ship
sang the waves toward the sun’s own gold—
land ripe for plunder and death to their kings!

All now ghosts: gold, kings, and ship…

 

Imagination fired by a field trip last weekend to see the Viking ship, sailed from Norway to Chicago in 1893 for the World’s Columbian Exposition and now residing in Geneva, Illinois. Viking was modeled on the 9th-century Gokstad ship, excavated in 1880.

The Remotest Island in the World

To say nothing of myself
or the self-contained teen
in the other room, of our place
in vast, fragile space
dwarfed by our sun, dwarfed
by other suns—

but let me tell you of our life
with penguins and potatoes
our southern seasons lonely
off the grid, yet in the global trend
(internet at the café, supply boats
twice a year). We’ve embraced

a taste for our own vodka
for homespun wool. No avoiding
your neighbor at the seaside
or singing below the volcano
though indeed no one knows
how I detest eating lobster

 

I read this article about Tristan da Cunha, and my imagination ran away just a bit.

Unzipped Triolet

If I could just unzip the gray
to find blue seas behind that wall
and perch there, wondering, not afraid—
If I could just unzip the gray,
dive clean in sunlit blue-salt waves,
no fear of drowning heart-hard, small—
If I could just unzip the gray
to find blue seas behind that wall.

Inspired by Margo Roby’s picture prompt, with thanks to Jane for bringing the triolet to my attention.