Another Late Posting

 This poem was entered into the streetcorner box for the month of March, 2021.  It was inspired by my niece, who is a student at the University of St. Andrews, and by my introduction to a form of poetry called the duplex.

St. Andrews Duplex

 

Her nose is rimed cool salt the air of place

A football arcs toward Salvators and grace

          Lay near the goal if that were grace

          I held her like a kitten then amazed

She had no fear was not amazed.

I was monstrous fearful of my strength

          Fearful that my balance was my strength.

          You found a place to gauge the speed of light

The lowering clouds mute time and place and light

A woman came this way before this time

          A young woman had no use for time

          The oysters arced from her hand to the land

Another day ended silent or began

Her nose was rimed cool salt the air of place

Catching Up

I've fallen behind in posting the monthly poems, which are still going out to the box for the passers by.  The last two months have been poems about my father, now gone, who was a Sailor in WWII.  This is the poem for May:

You Rest

 

You fell among the fishes for a while

Perhaps a sunfish saw you pass

One dinner plate of sight

Just catching the glint of brass

 

Too deep already for the mourning words

The tinny music there above to reach you

And the gentle rasp of the flashing shoes

Upon the coated deck

 

It’s left to me the imagining

The tumble through the cold

And darkening

The way you might have done

 

And the settling there a bit atilt

The dust of the universe drifting down

Around your place upon the silt

Where still you rest