Dusk falls across the sky.
I watch the spider build her web
between the back stay and the boom.
Quickly she knits the sticky threads
entwined through the silk ones.
She alone knows the difference.
To depend upon experience or teaching
would long ago have failed her swift feet,
leaving her dangling
tangled and tied
into her creation
before she could eat or breed
the future of her kind.
Twenty-two feet of get-a-way
to nowhere in particular.
Away from
beepers
pocket phones
E-mail, WEB sites,
TV's, radios,
and all the other moaning
drones that direct my days;
cables dug
microwave towers erected
becoming lines of legal and taxable
technology drugs:
to which we stick our nose
attached to the addictive
linear thinking lanes
creating
brain drain,
stress related disease
chronic pain,
hives,
anxiety attacks,
arthritis
and bad backs.
I am weekend free
to sit on my deck at the dock,
to start or not to start the engine,
to hoist or not to hoist a sail or two,
to head for the bay or find some tiny creek.
At the end and the beginning
of each and every week
I am free to go or not to go
to do or not to do
to go to sea
or just sit under mosquito nets
and be happy
writing poetry about what I don't have to do.
I am free to be lazy with purpose.
My Little Boat is seriously threatened tonight
along with everything else in Virginia due to Hurricane Floyd.
Sept 15th, l999
Cold rain blow sideways,
straight through galley way,
caught sleep, naked feet unawares:
sudden wet,
stumble around,
slam hatches,
secure latches,
scrub new knot on head,
dry off,
change,
mop rain,
light stove,
start cowboy coffee,
await espresso,
huddle with brim filled cup,
muse life,
do nothing,
shut up in swaying boat,
drink from steaming brew,
listen to wind driven rain,
no thought stays,
Nirvana attained,
bliss received.
She lay on her side, listing on dry ground,
leaning on the Chesapeake Clean Up The Bay dumpster.
She sought some support.
Her hundred year old sleek lines and keel were clearly visible,
resting through the night on oyster shells
reflecting early spring moonlight.
Forty five feet of hand hewn timbers and forged brass
had ceased to grasp for breath.
High above her the great scythe arm of the crane
stretching into the night,
wrecking ball hanging,
gently swinging back and forth,
shadowing across her hull,
forecasting tomorrow.
Early next day we walked past her
seeing, not looking.
"He went for a shower" they said,
"returned to sirens and fire instead."
His ancient lady was struggling at her lines,
pitching and yanking,
tangled in her slip
her negligee sheets flaming:
she was her own funeral pyre.
Everything he owned was in her.
Her ribs had become his life support system.
He her Adam. She his Eve.
His face blazed warm, his chest heaved,
he looked but could not see.
Bay Lady shrieked and cracked
smoked and groaned:
then silently, ever so quietly
her slip became her grave,
smoke, fire, steam, boiling foam.
Environmental Hazard
Hoisted from the water,
she lay on dry land under the cool spring sun.
We all of Rebel Marina were quiet.
The Viewing it was.
Only wooden boat owners could attend.
We burn and crack up quickly.
Clorox bottle boats melt and splinter.
The rest of the day, we were all either gone out to sea,
gone to the mall,
or stuffed down in our boats drinking Captain Jack.
Whether gone or near, the undertaker’s wrecking ball
rang in our ears.
Tha-wack-bum-bam,
tha-wack-bum-bam.
Jim’s Blue Steel 41 foot boat.
Sunny Sunday
at last.
Ice on the port holes
Ice in the bilge
ice in my stomach
ice on the bow
ice on my nose
ice on my toes
ice on the aft
ice on my ass
melting melting
at last.
Debbie made it through January, February and March
humming her little ice dirge song
on the steel drum tub from Jamaica
echoing ice,
creaking night after night.
Sunny Sunday
mellow melting morning.
Debbie stuck it through winter.
She qualified to be Jim’s wife.
Quietly, she said, "Yes, for life,
only if we sail for Jamaica tomorrow."