There are gardens built on bedrock in the sea
weed-strewn by all accounts
I’ll never venture by volition
there beyond the depth of waist
sunk like a submarine
Gardens of rest sprout along the ocean floor
vertical voyagers stopped mid-passage
and old salts whitening their smiles
further afield, a sprinkling of barnacled silhouettes
ruins all akimbo like Gothic follies
A treasury dug deep into sea beds
downed by storm and waving wreckers
covetous consignments decked in metal of Midas
cyphered plans, captains’ logs and old world maps
a sea-grass tangle of centuries
Birds flap their fins and glide through the garden
in warm whirlpools raptors circle
carrion crews clean the current
shoals, wheel, turn and swoop in silver murmuration
for there is sky even in the shallows
On the tide lines a perpetual rise and fall of relics
those aiming too high for light of day
netted, scavenged and gasping for air
Some free versifying this Sunday as I join the many talents stored up at Poetry Pantry
Love the way you have used the alliteration, the rhythm are like waves for that sea-garden you describe, it’s like the seaweed moving…
LikeLike
am an alliteration addict Bjorn! – as you say, it waves with a certain rhythm – thank you
LikeLike
I like the description of the wreck…the last stanza implies it could be a metaphor for life.
LikeLike
interesting comment on last stanza – maybe reflects my Icarus complex!
LikeLiked by 1 person
So rich with imagery – the fourth stanza is especially fantastic!
LikeLike
thank you Sherri – am starting to see how much I see in words – beneath the sea 😉
LikeLike
Lovely use of alliteration 🙂 feels like waves washing upon the senses in form of verse 😀
LikeLike
love alliteration but try to avoid the tongue twisting aspects – she sells seashells on the seashore etc
LikeLike
I love the image: “wheel, turn and swoop in silver murmuration”. I always enjoy a poem about the sea.
LikeLike
ever since ‘Cargoes’ I’ve loved sea poems too Sherry
LikeLike
wish the seabed was Midas (you can harvest gold from seawater).
Instead of a murmuration of plastic.
LikeLike
if only it were easier to harvest water from saline – that would be gold indeed (still a more optimistist view of the oceans than the recent soiling green
LikeLike
I have imagined these gardens too. 🙂
LikeLike
like me a place of imagination rather than daring to go?
LikeLike
Lots of wonderful imagery in this poem!
LikeLike
❤
LikeLike
“I’ll never venture by volition
there beyond the depth of waist”
Nor I. You have added to my imaginings of that garden, that grave and junkyard we feed to the fishes on the bottom of the sea.
LikeLike
love to be by the sea, not in it much and not on it for fear of drowning Susan – though as a child intrigued by Hans and Lotte Hass who brought us the wonders of the deep in black and white
LikeLike
The oceans do harbor such treasures being birthplace of so much on earth. I love your crisp vocabulary and imagery in this stunning poem.
LikeLike
I like the notion of ‘crisp vocabulary’ – thank you
LikeLike
i like the way you describe, really interesting.
LikeLike
glad you enjoyed Natasa – many thanks
LikeLike
You make this place a sparkling invitation and call your reader to “come and see.”
Elizabeth
https://soulsmusic.wordpress.com/2015/10/18/belated-reflection/
LikeLike
lovely comment – thank you Elizabeth!
LikeLike
‘those aiming too high for light of day’ … but some gasping for air outside the water….just thoughts about being thyself ~ thanks for inviting in this sea garden of pearl like words….
LikeLike
never content with our sphere perhaps humbird 😉
LikeLike
excellent.
🙂
LikeLike
❤
LikeLike
This was amazing. Its like a script from PBS
LikeLike
thank you – I’d like to think Percy Bysshe Shelley?
LikeLike
Alliteration moves this poem as if we were in those waves at sea….I saw 2 gardens here. One of ocean plants on the shore and surface and one of wrecks and debris strewn about by the never ending waves…..absolutely fabulous Laura!
LikeLike
perhaps we gardeners see gardens everywhere Donna!
LikeLike