ocean

Waves in Fury

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Waves in Fury

Waves spew anger
again and again
batter rocks to granular bits
like cruel words
batter the vulnerable heart
crush self esteem to nothingness.

In response to The Daily Post’s weekly photo challenge: “Forces of Nature.”  Tobacco Bay, Bermuda – February 2015.  Amazing to feel the wind so strong it made us lean forward to move. Back at our rental, I licked my upper lip and could still taste the salt from these glorious and angry waves! I think I must have been a sea creature in a past life — how I love the ocean!

Life’s Choices

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City life can be invigorating. Sometimes I crave the natural of the sea.  The juxtaposition of these two got me to thinking about the two sides of myself and voila, this “person” resulted. I do think that sometimes, there’s a “reclusive idyllic” in all of us…..as in today’s Daily Post Word Challenge.

 Life’s Choices

Reclusive by nature
she lived everyone else’s dream
a New York-Wall Street-Starbucks life.

She woke ten years ago, exhausted
ignored the ticking clock
sipped coffee slowly and decided.

One greatly, not gently used car
stuffed suitcase, and road map later
she searched the road for seaside serenity.

Dune shack dweller these many years
she fancied herself a Crustacean
sliding through life sidewise.

Exo skeleton deliberately developed
avoids tourists, sudden noises
eye contact and sand castles.

Off-season, she feasts on quiet
vast stretches of sand, sea and sky
shell discarded, she feeds her soul.

Summer’s Delights

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NaPoWriMo  April 29  and  Photo Challenge to share a photograph that captures motion and tell the story behind it.  Several summers ago we were delighted to have our daughter and grandchildren join us for a weekend in Provincetown. Oh the joys and innocence of childhood!

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Summer’s Delights

Apple tree blossoms in curly hair
knocked off their branches
during the morning climb
by scraped and knobby knees.

Sidewalks with white chalk not snow
crooked squares and wiggly numbers
smudged by hop scotch jumps
and dripping lime popsicles.

Seaside escapades scented by Coppertone
childhood tag at water’s edge
joy forever captured in portraits
of red-brown freckles on sun flushed cheeks.

Sunrise Return to Sweden

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Four years ago, we took a Baltic Cruise, including a day in Stockholm. My husbands’ family is very Swedish. His grandfather, Hjalmer Siegfried immigrated in 1906, at age 22. Painter by trade, he decorated the basement walls to look like the USS Sweden, the ship that brought him to Ellis Island — complete with ship railings, sky, and sea gulls. Some visitors actually got seasick after a Yule drink of homemade glog. Well, honestly, I don’t know if it was the simulated ship or the grain alcohol in grampa’s glog!  Criuise highlight?  The VERY early morning glide through the absolutely quiet and rustic archipelago, leading into Stockholm. Island after island….stunning!  NaPoWriMo day 8 entry, without prompt.

     Dawn in the Archipelago, outside Stockholm….just entering Sweden.  IMG_6095      

Sunrise Return to Sweden                                                             

I stand mesmerized.
Dawn awakens serenity’s beauty
rippled patterns glisten on black sea
gulls hover over softly churning wake.

Moving patterns of white wings
against dark greens and grey rock edges
the occasional light house turns its eye
wood frame homes nestle in their woods.

The ship slowly glides in dark waters
through Sweden’s archipelago
guardian isles to myriad lines of ancestry
protector from the city’s growing girth.

A lone call from among the gulls
pierces still air, a stark welcome
primitive in nature, surely heard before
by our grandfather and his and his and his.

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Shadow of Mine

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Shadow of Mine

We walk, you in front of me
one created flesh and bone
the other born of sun
elongated faceless gray.

Seamlessly
we stroll the beach
arms out wide now close in
darkness plays with light.

I stop you stop
your head turns as mine
we follow a gull’s flight
as it rises from the sea.

If I turn and reverse my course
will you dance behind me
like the kite that zigs and zags
when its master loosens his hold?

Parrot Fish

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Spending February in St. George, Bermuda was, as they say, food for the soul. The waters are truly iridescent. We were fortunate to see a bright parrot fish on one of our many hikes. When I got my camera out, it was gone. Gone — but remembered as I wrote the poem below.  Post Script:  Once spring has truly arrived in Boston, I’ll change my Photo page to the amazing Bermuda coastline.

 

Parrot Fish

The water so clear he can see
the parrot fish glide in and
out among the rocks
and Sargasso sea grass.

Eyes shaded, he tastes the salt air
and looks out at the layers of blue
from navy to azure to sky melting
into sea. Slowly, he remembers.

Her eyes. Pools of iridescent aquamarine
with feathered lashes opening and closing, half shut.
The blue so deep he wanted to dive into the pool,
possess it, feel the coolness on his skin.

Gazing downward again, the bright crimson
parrot fish is gone. Escaped. Riding the waves
as foamed breakers leave ridges in the sand’s
edge. And once again, he is left behind.

Secrets One and Two

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We all have them, right?   Secrets can be delicious or debilitating, wonderful or horrific. So here’s the question to think about. At some time in our lives, have we all had both?
 

Secret One                                                  

A secret so sublime
you long to swirl it
relish it slowly
like the first pour
of fine red wine
as it coats the glass
anticipation heightens
the tasting as divine
as the telling.

 

Secret Two

A secret so potent
like anger
wind-whipped current
roaring through
the sea wall of your mind
unrelenting persistent
batters forward
again and again
through rock hard edges
until released in spews
shattered feelings spent.

Glisten

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And so it begins today.
Rejuvenatement, not retirement.
Poetry, my voice from within, now has the time and the space.

I’ve always found the sounds and sights of the ocean mesmerizing.

My spouse of 45 years and I spend two weeks every year in Provincetown, MA, the very tip of Cape Cod. Many have found the magic of this place as their muse:  playwrights Eugene O’Neill and Tennessee Williams; Pulitzer Prize winners Norman Mailer (author) and Mary Oliver (poet).

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Glisten

Our footprints disappeared
in the cool damp sand ridges,
walking farther and farther
into the wetness of low tide.

Heads bowed, we shaded our
eyes from the sun’s glare,
the glisten it created as the water
deepened in the distance.

We shared our solitude
quietly grateful
we chose the off-season
to rediscover our togetherness.