AT THE BEACH
Off Cape Cod
near Wellfleet Bay
on a bitterly windy cold day
with high tide seen
at the sandy beach
where native Americans
first met the Pilgrims
from England to New England
who reached out to them
offering food
as they sang their hymns
today hundreds of turtles
have lost their way
from the Gulf of Mexico
moving north to New England
over the gulf stream
and close to a death trap
by the cold waters
have washed along the shore
as a couple of good souls
local sons and daughters
are on a mercy mission
to spare them in a triage
from frozen extinction
and dehydration
who travel to the Boston
Aquarium facility
in a miraculous airlift
in helicopters
in giant banana boxes
of emergency care
as a poet dreams this night
of young endangered creatures
not in despair on the beach
but within our hands
with difficulty to reach
the many turtles who survive
being buried in the sea
riding the blue waves
to rise among the reeds.
ELEMENTS
An international poet
takes his niece
on school vacation
up to the Metropolitan
to view Gauguin,
Rothko and Matisse,
outside are April winds
as flakes of white have fallen
with a fringed snow resting
upon trees to be unveiled for us
but this twilight
we are fugitives
walking by long aisles
of fine landscapes and statues
along walls of contained art
with a wise style and structure
certain as we ourselves
brush by
a Michelangelo drawing
curtained for us
as an accomplice to find
in the sculptured intelligence
and depth at each
intriguing station
situated in our minds
reaching upon
pedestals of civilization
created and incarnated forever
from outlined
thresholds of culture
we find explanations
of the painters
and their elements
of recognition
communicating from
our enlightened past
granted to us
this exploration's morning
as formidable color
development rises to shape
a parting explanation
through our honorable
kindly watch list
in a universe
through others' eyes.
THURSDAY IN APRIL
Sunshine threads
us as dandelions appear
intoxicated by the new season
on the high fields
over the grassland golf course
at my daily walk
down blue hills
carrying my notebook
and archive diary
with a Rouault clown cover
in a border of remembrance
observing the clouds departure
as morning birds bend down
over branches of birches
wishing my patch of earth
heeding a new
embroidered spring
to console and absorb us
hearing the waves
off the Cape
splashed by
new rain at waterfalls
in the distance to be destined
to stay alive as a wordsmith
as flower petals may be awaking
erasing our light
lost insomnia
on edge at our loneliness
waiting for nature
to disguised itself
with quivering
ripened oranges
curled and tangled on a tree
bordered by tiny squirrels
near a reunion of leaves,twigs
and witnessing woodland ferns
taking my oars in my hands
on my anchored kayak
by the house iron fence
to my germinating
singular voice
guided by blushing
rose bushes
under the first
wounding light.
You have a way of connecting ideas like branches on a tree. Everything interconnects both in time and space.
ReplyDeleteI'll go back and read them a few more times......