June 2018 – PoetryPix

“Saw a poem float by just beneath the surface”
– Jim Harrison ~ Songs of Unreason

A wrecking - that's what it was
out of a bay's stormy waters, the ship appeared
the perilous pitch and toss powered by a gibbous moon
her bowsprit like a readied sword fighting the blind
and backward drag, riding the surges harder and harder inland
five fishbone masts stood out, half-rigged
torn and billowing like the sleeves of the drowned
arms making one last bid to heaven

in all the wind and bluster I held my ground
gesticulating with a storm lantern from the shore
each swing willing them back, pulling them on
to the dread harbour of a wretched reef
and as the thunder rolled away
a child went wading in the silent, stranded pools
she stood on a moon, reflected out of bright blue skies
and beneath the surface, a stoppered ship-in-bottle
becalmed with all sails set and on each small white wing
some lines of poetry, just visible: "Now sleeps the crimson petal,
now the white; Nor waves the cypress that race" - she popped the cork
too eager to fathom the rush of water over a sinking ship
and the lines of ink wending their way in a watery whirl of a cloud