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Rod &
Kubby. Photo by Bob Gentry, ©2002 by Stanyan Entertainment Group.
A Thought for Today
They are the yardstick we measure our
current lives by.
FROM the¨BOOKS
Today’s poetry is taken from Suspension Bridge and The Carols of
Christmas.
The City as Ocean
The hills rise up
like water walls,
waves in solid glacier.
Held in place
by pasted plankton
seen as grass,
gray asphalt rubbings;
as here and there
a rock breaks through
to further hinder
navigation.
Fog lives,
is part of every hilltop
and hill bottom.
A soft Saran-wrap
wraparound.
The little boats
that cables pull
sound bells as pure
as bobbing buoy
and as predictable.
And there’s the lighthouse
safe secure,
atop some masoned mansion
from preceding century.
Its beacon, window wide,
hard light, is seen as far
as two hills over.
Great ships there are
that thread amid
the tied together boats.
They motor through
these measured waters,
never float or coast.
The city seen
as wider ocean
is not mere thought,
some mean invention
made to make
a table top
for prose to play on.
Fact is the reason
seas must be surveyed
maps remade, redrawn.
What sailor knows
beyond the doubting
where seacoast ends
and land begins?
And where’s the port?
Not here.
Somewhere further inland.
If cautious captain
and depend-on-crew
is not the soul
of seas and sailing,
where ticks the heart
of such a land-sea mass?
This body undulating,
with itself,
self-congratulating,
ever kissing –
soft caressing, shoreline.
Evil in the argument
with lover wind
and good friend sky,
the sea as city
is twin-bodied
and at odds.
If there are gods
they gave the ocean
soul.
No ocean rolls
without direction.
No river threads
without a needle eyelet
hollowed out
to thread through.
If tides are booked
they have direction,
not merely cosmic
or why the upset
when they misbehave
or don’t perform
at scheduled time?
And here we come
to mind and thought.
Is it unthinkable
that some things
unexplainable
remain just that?
All cities growing
from a shoreline
cannot be likened
to their neighbor,
larger, wider ocean –
so singled out
with such security.
Only San Francisco.
We don’t know why.
It has to do
with fluctuation,
not attitude or energy
or even those
wall-water hills.
Added energy supposed,
attempted attitude perhaps.
No, not even that.
Ebb and flow.
Ebb and flow -
give and take
in other places
cause this town,
this round wet city,
to be sea-same.
Calm in sunlight,
cold and glittering.
Dangerous
in dark of night
and frightening.
But always honest,
ocean-like,
without apology.
Ask any sailor
which sea holds
the great adventure.
He will answer
San Francisco every time.
Suspension Bridge
What mystery do you suppose
singes sky when daybreak comes?
Is it some crimson coil unspun
unraveled from the corners
of onlookers’ eyes
or merely one great yawn,
a waking up of some behemoth
pink tongue flicking from
a deeper, darker throat?
Stand bareheaded on the sidewalk, shore
and feel saliva mist roll forward
around, around and over again –
retreat it will and come again
wave over wave in A.M. hour.
Magicians and mythology
could not work out
the sense of other
the sureness that Beyond
is where we live in now,
each of us
a changeling
when the night erupts.
It is then the odd thought travels
with immunity.
Sweet, scary and delectable ideas
empower midnight hour
and the six that follow.
Thought that would not brave
the daylight
is brazen hussy after dark.
Acadia and Salem may make
covenants with spirit life
but they are not exclusive contracts.
It’s not a witch’s brew, I tell you
nothing warlock-like,
and no evil hinted at.
It’s only something,
a concentrate let loose
that run amok.
You would not know it
if it came reflected up at you
from private basin.
All the same,
It is a welcome gift.
Be grateful for the gift that comes
without instruction or condition -
except, perhaps, to feel.
-from Suspension Bridge, 1984
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