Spirits beneath the blue
assuaged by filtered sun
and undulating sea grass.
Marauding masked visitors
disturb your sleep,
seek riches beyond the pale.
Wherein lies the treasure?
Corroded trinkets, ancient coins
or peace for lost immortal souls.
Delighted to host Tuesday Poetics today at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets. Many folks across the globe celebrate holidays during the month of November and December and with that comes visitors to our homes and, perhaps, travel for us. Today, I’m asking folks to write a poem that includes the word “visit” or a form of the word. Photo is from last February’s visit to Bermuda. There are more than 300 sunken ships around the coast of Bermuda – a haven for adventurous divers. Pub opens at 3 PM Boston time — come join us!
lillian the home poet 
This is different and lovely!
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Glad you enjoyed!
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Marvelous! Beautiful! Tragic! 😎😎😎🥀🥀🥀
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🙂
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Those sunken ships must be dangerous in those waters for other vessels.
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Oh yes….it’s all the coral reefs that surround Bermuda.
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An interesting visit – both to Bermuda and past the sunken ships. The last stanza says it all – peace for immortal souls? I often wonder myself about the souls lost aboard ships.
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Yes — we visited Pearl Harbor about 12 years ago. There were signs to be quiet and respect the dead as you went onto the memorial built atop the sunken ship(s) — but there really was no need. It was a very somber place and you couldn’t help but think about the men entombed below.
We visited the Titanic Museum on Southampton, UK — it is an excellent museum and I highly recommend it. What I most remember was a map of the city that was drawn on the floor of one room, with little squares on the streets that showed the houses/apartments of the time when the Titanic sailed from Southampton — and the names of the individuals who lived in this little drawn houses were listed on a large chart on the wall. What was really sobering were the Xs or perhaps they were colored red? I can’t recall the exact way they delineated it, but each house/square that had been occupied by someone who died on the Titanic was marked on the floor. So many lost from that city. Made history real. Lost souls indeed.
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Love the way you describe those divers… maybe we should let the sea keep its treasures.
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Good thought. Let those lost rest in peach and their mementos and belongings with them or in the jaws of sea life that inhabit the place with them.
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An amazing visit, Lill! Spirits and treasure – so exciting.
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Glad you enjoyed, Kim. 🙂
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Sounds fascinating. Treasure troves and sunken spirits.
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Hah! “Trove” is a word I just answered today’s Crossword clue with 🙂
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I enjoyed your write, it seemed like an adventure. And the beautiful pic.
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Glad you enjoyed, Annell. We’re looking forward to spending the month of March 2018 in Bermuda again. A very special place!
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Wrecked ships terrify me. I like those corroded trinkets though.
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🙂 Do you every go on cruise ships? I am not a swimmer at all….and terrified to go on sail boats or small boats….but have found cruising to be a wonderful way to see the world. And I thought I would hate it! 🙂
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Ha ha! I wish! I haven’t been on a holiday since 1990, a week with family in a house in Brittany, unless you count a day at the seaside in 2006. I would hate it though, I’m sure. For seeing the world, there’s always google 🙂
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You have a restless soul, like my wife; she would travel full-time if we could afford it. Your adventurous poetic is very tasty. Sunken ships, and deep water freak me–think I may have drown at sea in past lives. My vertigo worsens daily; wonder if, in the past, I fell from a high place ?
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I do enjoy travelling. Did a lot of solo global travel with my job — which I rejuvenated from 5 years ago last Friday. Now, my husband and I have discovered cruising — which we thought we would hate — and turns out we love it. A wonderful way to see corners of the globe you’d otherwise not see. But for me….sail boats, canoes, kayaks, small boat — NOPE! I am terrifed of them.
Past lives — always fun to contemplate. I’m absolutely positive I was a can-can dancer in one of those old western saloons 🙂 Hah! Maybe you should write me in to your western! 🙂 There was a real Diamond Lil I’m told 🙂
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Lillian, I get the first two verses. But the last paragraph, why are immortal souls lost, why would that be a treasure, etc. I really like the potential here — the possible treasure. ;=)
I wonder if the title would help: “Bermuda Sunken Ships” — that way, you don’t have to give us clues in the notes or with pictures. What do you think? I am reading Billy Collins recently and he suggests such “Valet Titles”. Sorry, I forgot if you are one of the folks who likes questions etc.
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Read as you will, Sabio. Once we put the words down, they’re in the hands of the reader 🙂
For me….the last stanza asks a question — which is the real treasure? The ancient coins, the goblets, dishes etc brought up from the sea? Or the peace of those whose bones lie deep within the sands…their spirits, their souls in watery graves. But again….each to his own for the reading.
Yep — I think carefully about my titles before attaching them. In this case, doesn’t matter that it’s in Bermuda. Could be sunken ships anywhere and the souls that went down with them. It just happens that I used the photo I have from Bermuda and hence explained it.
I don’t mind questions….just interesting to see someone critique like this and to go so far as to suggest a different title.
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@ Lillian
They were simple questions and thoughts – not criticism of you. I do see you are sensitive, though, so I will try to remember to be careful. Feel free anytime to make suggestions or thoughts or deep criticism on my poems. Always welcome. Actually far more desired than perfunctory compliments.
So according to your explanation (appreciated) the last stanza makes soul-containing-bones a better treasure? Still a bit odd, even if I buy into the soul idea. And the “lost” part still seems a bit odd — can’t figure out what is lost — your word order has the souls lost, but why would they be? But maybe you don’t mean “lost soul” in the usual Christian way — of someone damned (all non-Christians), maybe you just meant lost at sea, lost.
Yep, my read, but aren’t you glad one reader is being honest with you. I am a limited ignorant poetry reader, but at least you see how some of us are limited in our readings.
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RE your final comment……not “sensitive” Sabio….just very interesting to see different “reads” on a set of words on the page / computer screen.
Okay….if I were to write it out….
There are sunken ships and presumably people who “went down” with the ship and died in the waters. Some bodies are recovered; some are not. My thought train is that their spirits still lie below the waters, where they perished. Their souls are somehow still within those waters. The seek peace…find calm in undulating sea grass that perhaps strokes their spirits. They’re calmed by the sun that filters through the waters, the fish, the sea grass. But — there are divers who explore the sunken ships…some looking for treasures like coins, etc. My throught process, in the poetic story is that their diving disturbs the spirits, their place where they reside. And the question then becomes, what is more treasured or what should be more treasured? The “find,” the trinkets they bring up, the thrills of seeing the sunken ship and exploring it OR the peace of the spirits that rest within the sunken artifacts. These are souls lost at sea…killed presumably in some kind of violence/storm/ship wreck who seek peace within the ocean itself. To be left alone and not disturbed. The poem is not meant to be judgemental about all diving — saying it’s bad — calling all divers marauding robbers — it’s just in this instance, these are the thoughts that came to me with the word “visit.”
When I write poetry, I don’t include every detail, every explanation…there is some mystery to it…there is a sense of meaning hopefully within the words and the spaces between the words and after the words….a less factual/detailed way of sharing feelings rather than details or technically correct facts.
Okay — nuff said….done explaining. Sometimes a poem doesn’t do it for some people…and that’s ok. I’m not a professional poet nor do I espouse to be. I just enjoy writing my feelings, my ideas…stretching myself and my imagination. Always glad to have readers who look more deeply into a piece. I think suggesting a different title though is, using words from this post, a bit “beyond the pale.” 🙂
Come by again, Sabio. Good to engage.
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Ah, so that is it. You see spirits laying in the bones — not something I would ever do. And “Lost soul” has different meaning in many circles. So I could not see what you did. Indeed, it is sort of spooky and cruel for the spirits to linger in the bones and be stroked by seaweed. I remember the anime “Spirited Away” with some of the Shinto spirit images there. Have you seen it?
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I really like the phrase “Marauding masked visitors” to describe scuba divers… clever! Lovely adventurous poem.
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Thanks, Adda! So appreciate your positive response 🙂
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I’ll be scuba diving soon with my son — most of us are robbers, btw. But then, if there were a chest of gold coins. Hmmmmmm. Then those immortal souls have their immortality, what need do they have with the gold. 😉
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Only you can make scuba divers sound like vicious armed robbers….well done!
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🙂 …. glad you enjoyed!
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I certainly did!
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Lillian you instill a tone of mystery in this poem and ponder deep questions. Truly a pleasure to read.
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Thank you so much, Jilly. I truly appreciate your appreciation here 🙂
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Loved the masked visitors looking for rusty treasure!
Dwight
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Glad you enjoyed! 🙂
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Sunken ships make me sad. Seeking treasures among lost souls, they lose their value in comparison. Great poem!
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We are thinking on the same wave length here, Mary. Glad you enjoyed.
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I don’t know if it’s what you were getting at, but I thought of how sad it would be to die at sea, completely in pursuit of earthly treasure. Maybe we’ll never know, but maybe there was a salvation at the very end.
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Deaths at sea are tragic indeed….bodies lost at sea…bones buried within the ocean’s floor. Their rest is interrupted by the divers exploring sunken ships and seeking the treasure that buried itself with them. Glad you enjoyed this one…..it’s been interesting to see the different responses. I’m glad you connected with it.
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Ah, the things that the deep blue see hides..
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Oh yes….creatures and spirits…and sea glass that was once something else. 🙂
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I love the phrase “beyond the pale.”
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Me too! I’ve been looking to use it and it seemed to fit here. 🙂
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Disconcerting thought…all those spirits beneath the waves. Maybe it is their voices we hear in the shells. I like this poem.
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Ohhhhh….I like that idea of the voices we hear in the shells. I’ve always thought it sort of a muted moan…and now I will connect it with the spirits lost at sea. Glad you liked the poem!
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touching poem, very sentimental to me, the sea keeps so many secrets.
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It does indeed. So glad you enjoyed and connected with the poem 🙂
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Oh my! 300 sunken ships..that’s a lot. Well written for the resting souls. I’m sure they get disturbed by the adventurous divers 🙂
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The Bermuda Triangle is real for ships // no so certain about airplanes through. It’s the reefs around the island combined with the tides that does in folks. There were no humans living on Bermuda when it was discovered by Captain Somers whose ship wrecked there in a storm – he was on his way to the settlement of Jamestown (earliest settlement in the US) with fortifications when he crashed. They stayed on the island, rebuilding their ship with the native timbers…went on to Jamestown a year later to find it almost desolate as most had died. They returned to Bermuda and many chose to settle there. What’s interesting abou that is that unlike the US when it was “discovered” — there were no indigenous people on the land (what were called American Indians in the US) — so there were no wars…no conversions etc. And, that means every person living in Bermuda is an immigrant of sorts. Interesting, right?
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That’s an interesting information indeed. You have done quite a research on it dear. Thanks for sharing this information.
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I would love to visit these ships! I can imagine the stories lost to the sea.
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Bermuda is an amazing place! We will be there almost all of March in 2018. We do not dive so only see the shipwrecks that peek above the water like this one 🙂 Many folks go to Bermuda specifically to snorkel in the reefs and scuba dive deeper to these sites.
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An enjoyable read Lilian and imaginative rendering of your theme tinged with sadness for the disturbance. Reminds me of Dylan Thomas’ Captain Cat and his dead sea friends’ voices coming to him (Under Milkwood)
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Ah thank you, Laura. So glad you enjoyed and connected with the post. I’m most appreciative of your kind words for this one. 🙂
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I’m amazed how merely 37 words (shorter than a quadrille!) were enough to dive, with style, to the bottom of the ocean and back, traversing the natural, historic and spiritual beyond the pale. Unrushed and relaxed — still much air in the tank!
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Ah Colin….I am late to the answering here and smiling at your words. Thank you sir! So very glad you enjoyed and glad there’s air in the tank! 🙂
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this is so fascinating.. and your words beautifully sum up everything
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Thank you for your kind words. So glad you enjoyed it! The sea is definitely fascinating 🙂
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I like the vivid comparison of peace with sunken, underwater treasure.
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