Water Chronicles: Poetry Collection
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Nwyfre
Can you hear
The sound of the Sea?
Like heart-breath,
Fishes mating,
The children of Life
Coiled like shells
In the nest
Of honeyed sunlight…
Soft bodies
Open and Hungry
For a love
Like the Sea and Shoreline
With a universe of journeys
Forever intertwined
From a Mermaid Queen
You come to the Sea
With fibrous roots
And weeping volumes on display.
I can be your Donne* and cloud the sun,
Softening the grain
That’s distorting your vision.
I am a Queen
Tending the streams
And giving pearls their names.
Take a guess
At what the Waves Know
Fastening their snowy caps mid-Flow
No need to project
I will not Correct you
Or straighten your path
Your world is your own.
But like the chasms who Delight in Solitude
Yawning wide at the Tempests
Who try to Batter them into curling inward:
Expand.
Swim beyond your rim
Make peace with rain that blots out the sun
Sit by a pond,
Quiet and still.
Become the peace the flags promise
But cannot fulfill on their own.
Find my Silken Waves in Songs
Temples in the granite swells
Gateways in the Veils half-Drawn
And in my heartbeat, Citadels.
Note: John Donne was a poet who wrote “The Sun is Rising.”
Stillness: As Told by a Mermaid Queen
Does an iceberg need to breathe?
Does the moon have a heartbeat?
The moon does not lose her grace when the sun no longer shines on her face;
She does not wait for the next day or have a thought to anticipate.
Is there a plan in the ocean’s spray or desire in volcanic lakes?
Be still.
I am suspended between the inhale and the exhale
Between the ebb and the flow.
This is a place where you can be so clear
That pain and even thoughts disappear.
When you place your hand upon my face
You will feel the oceans of the Earth as one wave.
This is a gift from the sea and the foundation of all peacemaking.
The biggest problem faced by man is to see dreams as whimsical things rather than states of being.
There are dreams inside me so sweet that they end all separation and heal every being.
Release identity and live so free that fear and thought have no way to distract from all that is and all you can be.
Now is the key. In your dreams, become the answer you ask for.
Eclipsed in your mind is a great enigma:
Your dreams are the lifeboats for your Earthly expeditions.
Stillness is the seaport for your thoughts craving repose.
My love will ferry you across the expanse.
When you are so endless and serene
That all that is exists is in your being
Then your very existence will create peace
And be like the Waves and Tides that reflect lunar light.
In every moment, we arrive.
Innocence is being in this one moment knowing it is the first, the last, and the eternal without forgetting and losing the miracle you are.
There is a portal named Serenity. As soon as you enter it, you are at home.
There is only here.
Stillness is the answer to your mystery.
Aquariums
There are
Too many hands
Above our heads
Distilling the universe
To the dry drops
They feed to us
And want to watch us
Dive for
We live here now
Try to thrive
On this side of the beaker
But Tiktaalik*
Is still awkward
Her hind fins
Are incomplete
Holocene clock chimes
A telescopic eye
Searches for me
I set goggles aside
Unplug the microscope
From my heart
Take off my lab coat
And go feed the fish
Note: Tiktaalik is the transitional form of the fish who first walked on land
Abstractions from Meditations on Water
A harmonious scene greets my deep breathing
This realm is easy to meet, twinkling at my arrival
No streets can equal the enormous girths of the rivers Here
The moon keeps slicing herself into pieces
Cascading onto my outstretched tongue… milky bytes ringing in my ears
Below us, the earth Muses softly about bringing Gardens to Life
And a waterfall finds its Family welling in my eyes
This must be rebirth.
Light’s streams brush against the womb
A Wave remakes me on its salty Loom
Moonbeams alight on a new sensation
Speaking in tongues of a thousand nations
As the Tides release their invitation
To a chorus that pierces the Night
The lotus’s return to life
Where infinite rays from shimmering heights
Bridge the oceans of Darkness and Light.
Spectacles
When were we not ecclesiastic
Coaxing Eden's crimson apples
Into salmon tinctures?
Crafting cupid's bows
Crashing under the hooked noses
Of naked skylines
But the breasts are not divine
Bruising their tides blue
On chiseled minds of pink-eyed oysters
Perfection is not exhausted
In the gritty silt
Of our grip on the hammer's handrails
Nor is it well-rested
Laced neatly in its corset
Being breathed with effort
The needle doesn't wound
Its Confucian compass
When it turns the South red
Stitching fiery poinsettias
Into the wave caps
Of Bluefin tunas
Their hospice is spotless
Under the dim focus of integrity
Gabled throughout our gallery
The easel cradles the amniotic ocean
Legs sturdy, if not shapely
Birthing faces cauled with spittled froth
Bleached spotlights stain their gloves
On the citrus scrolls
In a bronzed frame
While pristine sunrays
Continue to toss their sculpted bodies
Like tangled nets over the Atlantic
And God takes her lunch hour
Immune to all of it
Plunging a trident into the belly of her coffee cake
There Were Sirens
Sirens in the evening news
Sirens in the wooden pews
Sirens in the highs school halls
Sirens on the bathroom walls
Sirens in the busy streets
Sirens in the tired feet
Sirens in the forest fires
Sirens in the “missing” flyers
Sirens in the cotton belt
Sirens in the jaguar pelts
Sirens that were still asleep
Sirens that were battered cheeks
Sirens far behind the times
Sirens standing in the lines
Sirens on the building’s ledge
Sirens poached and left for dead
Sirens stuck in orange suits
Sirens in the apple juice
Sirens calling late at night
Sirens quiet and polite
None in the oceans though
Just a few fishing boats
Casting nets out to sea
And coming back empty
The Nymphs
On a distant hillside
Near the water’s edge
I find my heart and Mind disrobed
And wholly dispossessed
The spirits there are woven
From the River’s gentle spray
They hearken not to human law
Or civilized terrain.
Their voices blend together
With moonlight rich and pale
The Laurel and the Lotus
Merrily avail
Their fervour sets the glen aglow
A Halcyon Affair
I’m but a Peddling soul reduced
To trembling lips for Wares
The moon reveres their festive song
The Sirens swim toward their call
And ere my Heart becomes enthralled
The kings and queens invite me!
Though the Light the Night Enshroud
Withhold its tender Bliss
Tonight my heart is Dining well
And dancing with the Nymphs!
Death in Virginia Beach
Thrice the selkie cries
Dashing herself against the rocks
Velvet hanging around her legs
Like the plush on Moose’s antlers
Streetlights shine on the grey skies
A thousand eyes
Hanging low against the boardwalk
Staring at the silent Ferris wheel
There’s a plastic shovel sleeping under a castle
The water has half-devoured
A few Guinness bottles thrust their bellies up
Dusting the air with dreams of ships and sea glass
I’m leaning on the fence
A few feet above the sand.
A man walks by with his raincoat
Zipped tightly under his chin
He stops to admire us
Leaning against the sea with me
Hands over the rails with a coffee
Nodding at the selkie trying to find human feet
He mutters, voice running on, about how they’ve had to
Import sand to keep the beach afloat.
The sea wasn’t enough to hold its hand
Or teach it the breast stroke.
He prattles on about how they ought
To make rules to keep the tourists out for awhile.
Then chucks his coffee cup
Into the can that volunteers will have to recycle.
I smile wanly and nod,
Then like a car creating traffic
Complaining about the other cars in the way.
I lay on the horn with my forehead in my hands
I think a bell tolls
That or it’s somebody’s cellphone
A little lightning smirks in the distance
It knows that The Dairy Queen on 17th
Has sweet cream for humans and selkies
Who no longer have Homes to hold their skins.
Six Swans
The corn grows western ears
Rolling its eyes down the tracks of wagon wheels
The Ceremonies* drowned this year
In the sea of tears bleeding on the trails*
But somehow it’s still here
With yellow lanterns straining to see where its tribe has sailed
So it picks up a fallen feather and knits itself a speckled vest
And becomes one of the eggs
Of the six swans** floating on a red pond
Note: ** A reference to the Hans Christian Anderson fairy tale “The Six Swans”
How to Know That You're a Mermaid
Shells speak in your dreams
Seaweed greets you as a friend
Waves tell you their lore
You are not shocked when
The corals converse with you
Sharing their stories
You are receptive
When Whales cry from Their cages
Far from Their Homesteads
Your true Fanta-seas
Are to free the Sea Turtles
Choking on plastic
Thoughts and memories
Are as ageless and timeless
As the grains of sand
You are Complete when
Empathy erects castles
Inside of your heart
You have psychic dreams
Are One with everything
And see with your Soul
When your feet find Homes
On the pearlescent Coastlines
Of Love in action
There's no question that
You are one of the Merfolk
And one with the Sea
Swallow the Ocean
Searching for shells. Nearby
The water tastes my feet
Toes curling up
like snails
With pleasure
From the sky, Ninth
Wave doesn’t seem
Very high at all
Not when I’m Aivazovsky’s sun
Pink for green-sick sailors
Lights flicker. Loudspeaker
Announces museum closes soon
Must hurry
Others are here to taste
The ocean too
Rose wafer turns gold. Below
men still cling to the mast
I swallow the water level
Down for them.
Communion, clear and simple.
*Reference to Ninth Wave by Ivan Aivazovsky
The Selkie
A brindled flipper gleams in the moonlight
Webbing the space between us
Cushioning the gap
The ice is on fire
Singing the White Bear's song
Roaring against the quiet banks of snow on the horizon
We're far North
Polaris flashes his yellow beard at us
White teeth disappearing in a grin
The crone glides up to my tiny boat
Offers her coat to keep me warm
Invites me to the roots of glacial mountains
She uses her eyes to ask if I lost mine
I press my lips together
Casting my gaze down to my hands, flesh spread a little too thin
She understands
She gave her cloak away once
Just for second, but then a century became her prison
I pass her cape back
Unzip my soul
Leave boiling pots on the stove
And just dive in
Letting the freezing cold
Paint new designs onto my skin
The inky ocean enrobes us from head to toe
Not a single word is spoken
But everything is said.
Inertia
A film of detritus and pine needles
Pricks the marbled throat of a dried up creek
Intubating its body as to become part of what it is, eventually.
My eyes’ headlights cast themselves down, threading their way through
The tunneling veins of beige and chocolate.
Unable to stop colonizing the dormant tracks with dialogue…
Parched lives tangling their spaghetti-legged echoes together.
It took the creek’s death for them to speak to my bare feet
Sinking deep into the mud as the bacteria they are.
Yet still lending me the flesh of my limbs for now
Just as they offered faster wheels in their last becoming,
Seamless with the gasping trout.
Not shying away until the last shimmering scale was a part of them. Loyal even.
Now curling up with my toes, larval linguists,
Tonguing their brief repose into the muck, and which are
Indistinguishable, I’m sure, from the lethargic snails and pubescent pebbles
Cobbling their road to the unringed trunk of my leg.
A couple degrees crooked, but not split open to show its age.
No lightning script imprinted on its spine to show how long
it has left to travel around the sun as it is
Or as its legions has become, I suppose,
Cells flaking over a tiny puddle reflecting the white cloud-milk from above.
A tumbleweed stamps its bleach-boned knuckles
into the dough of its path, nutritive seed-womb growing daily
And germinating over the deers’ tracks.
Whose tongues lapped at the water last
Then took it with them to digest the corn
Mouths unconcerned by the picket fences of aphids, pesticides, or aspiring microbes
Already daughtering themselves again,
Shaping to fit the grass blade that had no meaning to trade in.
Just bending with the breath of the wind… Not a fibrous antenna,
Not a steeple or coarsely designed will.
Though at some point it must have felt the pull of a hand
That once decided that green meant “go”
And that bright leaves attached to stems meant fertile prospects.
Not just an unfurling thing, and not like the brown-bruised ones
With sun-scorched backs laid out like unread proverbs.
Part of the creek’s flesh, but not flashy enough to be interesting.
I blink as the skeletal sky rolls back another scroll,
Drops a wet stream of algae, protozoans, and bacteria, not as tears,
But a part of the rest of the day, onto the tip of my nose.
I step away, feet suctioning cups and cliffs into something’s world.
Then slip past the dry shrubs with their bony hands pointed upward.
All of us already integral to the different ways the water will flow.
The Invitation
Come with me
To the edge of the sea
To dreams as sweet as milk and honey
Come with me
We'll forge a thousand streams
With magnetic bearings
North of the nets and human crossings
Come with me
And weave new dialects our bodies compose
While gliding in creeks with Silver repose
We can find our histories
Swimming side by side
Clad in tentacles and violet-green
Come with me
Wild and unleashed
To a world that speaks in abalone
It climbs on the beach smiling Gently
And rests its Head on our Laps
With its Heart at our feet.