POEMS
Interlude
2 Poems written on Monhegan Island
Fire In the Sea
(a poem in the past)
A whiff of smoke
Propels me I know not where.
I have come out of the fire
To be renewed in the night air.
On the pavement
My footsteps echo hollow.
Unconsciously the smell of smoke
Bids me to follow.
I know not where.
I know not why.
The smoke lures me on
I whisper, I sigh.
A flame intent
On finding its mate
Lies at the base of the smoke,
Burning large and untended
In the fog and gloom.
Over the rise, at the bottom of a stair
It rages sending signals into the air,
Calls me to its bosom, its hearth and throne,
“Come!” it cries to make me its own.
I stumble forward blindly.
Instinctually I fumble.
Having given up long ago
To thought or reason much trouble.
Down the road to the crest of a hill,
Downward I look
Feeling a mysterious thrill.
That somehow the smoke
Has guided and lured me,
Seduced me to the sea
Where impossibly burns a fire
Providing light to no one but me.
Brave flame imperiously resists
The encroaching damp.
Hissing and sizzling
In the middle of this deserted ghost’s camp.
I side with the fire
Feeling the inevitability of its plight.
Soon to be extinguished
And taken from my sight.
I ponder the meaning
Of this brave peninsula,
Soon to be an island of fire.
The waters swirl about it
Confident of the outcome.
Slowly, inexorably
The fire in the middle of the water
Shrinks with each surging wave.
It’s lit, it’s out,
No, it’s lit again.
Believing somehow
That the inevitable
outcome of extinction
pales beside the battle for life.
Again and again
The water’s onslaught is repulsed.
But the island of fire grows steadily smaller
As the swirling waters retake the beach.
The rising tide is the moon’s daughter
Creating a moat, extending her reach.
Being such they will win the night
Vulcan’s fire quenched by Diana’s light
And yet I watch, the end in sight.
The flames almost extinguished
Gasp, sigh and sputter,
To reproduce more of their kind
Sustaining life’s flutter.
Until at last when it should have died
One last wonder in the fire I spy.
Two small sparks about one inch apart
gleam defiantly from the dead fire’s heart.
They have made a pledge
To see it through together,
No matter what threat
No matter what weather.
The entire ocean swirls
Around and around them.
But somehow peacefully
They gleam on together.
Sure in their pledge,
Sure in their plight,
At last together
They bid farewell to the night.
The fire is out.
The smoke is gone.
Their time has run out
And the ocean has won.
Only I remain
To ponder the significance
Of what I have seen.
I turn to head home
For I have found what I sought.
Internal Alchemy
(a poem in the present)
Now take me to the strong places,
The passionate places
The small but celestial spaces.
I have seen the moon
Carved out of stone.
I have bathed in the waters
That make me their own.
Intense yearning to follow
The chariot of Apollo
On its journey day after day
Across the sky.
On a mission of my own making
To find the light
To lend me the heavens
And find second sight.
The zephyrs breathe on me
And seek to lock my joints with rust.
Volcanic forces from the loins of the earth
Have frozen in the dust
Scattered on the molten edge
Of an ocean moved with lust.
Allow me to introduce myself I say.
They look away politely but afraid.
Is nature so small
That it can not
Encompass a single thought?
Or so broad that the thought
Gets overlooked or absorbed or extinguished
Or patted on the head
And told to “be a good boy.”
This roiling passion,
This distant flight
Beyond all the loonies
To warmth and pure night.
Pure light suffices to ease my poor brain.
But what is the reason for unremitting pain
Borne patiently without concern or modesty
To the point of self negation?
Who is this seaside beauty,
Subtle Nereid seeking to immortalize the moment?
She is deep and clever, warm and bright
With sun in her eyes, and a soul for the night.
Beyond my comprehension
She swims through the shallows
And flees through the deeps
Supple with ease.
But she storms, she storms
And I lose my sense of true north.
For she knows enough to make me question
My sense and my worth.
Unintentionally and casually
She brushes off my smirks,
Strong within herself
And gentle at work.
She leads, I follow.
I follow, she leads.
Unimportant who knows,
Or asks or succeeds.
The seeds of tomorrow
Are sown today.
So be who you are
And mean what you say.
A long time ago
Someone crossed a continent
And crawled out of the sea,
Generating a reflection of mirth,
A cacophony of glee.
But the open horizon
At the end of this calm duck strewn water
Is beckoning to me.
It says
Don’t give up just yet.
Don’t hurt yourself or others.
You’ve always been a late bloomer.
Perhaps a little later than most
Time, circumstances and good will etc. etc.
Manana, siempre manana.