ocean – Page 4 – lillian the home poet

Nature’s Blessings

February 7, 2016March 14, 2016lillian4 Comments

Mid night rains nurture
palmetto and loquat trees,
pinball through ridges
on Bermudian white roofs,
then steep in afternoon tea.

Tanka verse form: 5 lines of 5-7-5-7-7 syllables. Photos and explanation: Fruit of the loquat tree in Bermuda – ripe when very yellow. Bermuda has no rivers or lakes or island-wide plumbed water supply. Each household must collect and store rainwater. Roofs are treated and always white with ridges that take rain water to each home’s underground water tank. A household that runs out of fresh water must pay to have a company “top off” their tank. And yes, the water is absolutely safe to drink – I do it every day! Photo is taken from hill overlooking St. George’s – the town we are staying in for 2 months. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, founded in 1612, and a British overseas territory, hence the reference to steeping tea. The Kiskadee is a beautiful yellow bird found in Bermuda.

Sea Glass: Formed by Haiku and Tanka

February 4, 2016lillian50 Comments

I
Swallowed by the sea
broken in anger, sharp words
shards of glass now smooth.

II
Shades of green, amber,
some clear. Smooth, mysterious
bits of tumbled glass.
Whose hands held you to their lips?
Touched where? A long time ago.

III
So reluctantly
she gave them up to the sands
sea memories in glass.

Photos from our walk yesterday to the area outside of St. George’s, Bermuda called Tobacco Bay. Beautiful day to collect sea glass! Post linked to dVerse Poet’s Pub for Open Link Night. A great virtual gathering place for poets.

Ebb and Flow

February 2, 2016lillian47 Comments

Life is a path between the stars.
Tantrums at two were not my youth,
long before those days
cicadas nested in cedar trees.

Old age will not be defined
by creaking limbs and bleached bones.
I will float with abandon,
as myriad shades of liquid blue.

I shall become the ocean wide
waves crashing upon the rocks
seeping in and out,
among the sands of time.

The lunar tug shall continue me
and my waters shall lap the earth.

Abhra hosts dVerse Poets’ Pub, Tuesday Poetics and asks us to answer the question, what would you like to be reborn as or return as?
Photos: from Bermuda, myriad shades of blue!
Interesting fact: cicadas were dependant on Bermuda Cedar trees for their survival, and when the cedar forests died in the 1940s, the cicadas began to quickly disappear. They are now extinct.

Bermuda Morn

January 31, 2016February 28, 2016lillian13 Comments

Dark bird shapes in nearby palmetto
chatter loudly as clouds move by,
long fronds ruffle-whisper in ocean breeze.

Across the bay, one by one, lights disappear
grey sky blanket daubed with white blotches
lifts slowly to reveal brilliant blue.

Birds, now distinctly yellow, sing to me
kis-ka-dee, kis-ka-dee
and a Bermuda morning dawns.

IMG_0212 - Version 2

We are in St. George’s, Bermuda till March 29. Arrived yesterday. Photo is view from our deck at dusk last evening. Poem was written very early this morning, sitting on this same deck, listening and watching dawn arrive. Pen in hand….sadly, not the camera. Imagine this same picture, at dawn, with this palmetto home to several Kiskadees!

Dunes of Time

January 23, 2016January 23, 2016lillian18 Comments

Sand granules shift in shoes
sweat stained belly, dripping hair.
Up and over and down and up
and over and dune after dune.
Some with coarse stubble grass
some ridged from recent winds,
steps sink deeper every step.

Alone with memories,
faces shift like heat shimmers
mirages in my exhausted mind.
One more ridge.
Burning feet stop cold,
pupils dilate, tear ducts long dry
begin to burn, arms lift in shock.

White ripples rise up enmasse,
cacophonous beating wings above my head
thousands swerve. Amorphous sound wave
disappears where blue meets blue.

I stumble, slip down this last sand mound
shocked by their intensity, here then gone.
Lying in cool waters, face to glaring sun
I understand now. They are all gone.

stockvault-way-too-many-gulls108765

Published in response to Quickly’s Winter Doldrums: focus on a remembered moement when you seemed to enter into another sense of time.

Cormorant

October 31, 2015October 31, 2015lillian6 Comments

The cormorant held its breath
and disappeared from sight.
Black, long necked sleek bird,
ducked under, gone.

Like an actor in the second act
it pops up in a different place
new school of fish
different shoreline.

Would that we could do that
shift the paradigm
be a revisionist cormorant,
hold our breath
and recreate the scene.

Seasoned Flavor

October 14, 2015lillian16 Comments

Summer by the sea,
two months past.
That sweet-sharp
salty lick of ocean air
gone.
Autumn in the city
dry lips
moistened
by warm apple cider
as eyes celebrate
glorious color.

One Sentence Ode to Provincetown

September 28, 2015lillian7 Comments

She listens to the waves
gently lapping on the shore
the gurgle before the swoosh;
feels the sun upon her face
watches it glisten on the sea
and feels content to sit and do
absolutely nothing.

Sunday Seaside

September 26, 2015September 22, 2015lillian5 Comments

Sight line ends
where water creases sky.
Rhythmic waves,
the breath of wind.
Gulls glide by in slow motion.
Clouds first pink,
turn violet grey.
Glisten paths upon the sea.
Surely I am in church today,
my knees upon the sand
seeking intercession
in genuflection,
closer my God to thee.

Photos from beach by our deck in Provincetown. Assignment from my September 21 Day Challenge was to write a poem using the strategy of litany (listing) and end with a longer sentence, with a stronger meaning.