178 Ocean poems

To Norbert Valath To render the ocean one needs a whole year with Zoom in freezing fingers on a quarter-mile of coast. Sound is the one true vocabulary of nature and not the peacock-palette painters swear he uses for his best stuff, for his daily disposable frescoes. To render the ocean one needs a whole year on the quayside tracking the tide’s increasing stature, its drones and climaxes, the diminuendo when it shows sound is the one true vocabulary of nature. Nature plays bass clarinet in a Barcelona pop-up theatre. In a polo neck he solos the ocean. He tongues, he blows to render the ocean. One needs a whole year or centuries to capture even its least-most feature: like the boat-cove’s lapping, backwashed contraflows. Sound is the one true vocabulary of Nature, who’s lost in his MacBook, applying filter after filter to this day-long rock-pool’s jazz, its stadium of echoes. To render its ocean one needs a whole year: sound is the one true vocabulary of nature.

Our islands are Tagaloaalagi’s stepping stones across Le Vasa Loloa small and frail but courageous enough to bear his weight and mana high enough to keep us above the drowning and learning how to navigate by the stars    currents and the ferocity of storms Point and sail in any direction as long as you know how to return home You have to navigate the space between the borders of your skin and the intelligence of the tongueless horizon and learn the language of touch    of signs and pain of what isn’t and what may be in the circle of the tides that will stretch until you understand the permanent silence at the end of your voyage and our islands are your anchor and launching site for the universes that repeat and repeat like the long waves of our ocean    like Tagaloaalagi’s compulsive scrutiny of what is to come and fear

Implausible fish bloom in the depths, mercurial flowers light up the coast; I know red and yellow, the other colors,— but the sea,det granna granna havet, that’s most dangerous to look at. What name is there for the color that arouses this thirst, which says, the saga can happen, even to you— Translated from the Swedish by Averill Curdy

Gather 'round, ye scurvy mates, I'm signing on a crew. You there! Can ye tie a knot? Ye’ll do. I'd say you've snatched a purse or two. Ye'll do. Does the thought of plundered gold make ye shiver? Make ye bold? Ye'll do. Ha! You’re rotten through and through! Ye'll do. Phew! You stinking, drunken lout! You'd whack your uncle’s gizzard out! Well step right up! Beyond a doubt ye’ll do!

Southward with fleet of ice Sailed the corsair Death; Wild and gast blew the blast, And the east-wind was his breath. His lordly ships of ice Glisten in the sun; On each side, like pennons wide, Flashing crystal streamlets run. His sails of white sea-mist Dripped with silver rain; But where he passed there were cast Leaden shadows o'er the main. Eastward from Campobello Sir Humphrey Gilbert sailed; Three days or more seaward he bore, Then, alas! the land-wind failed. Alas! the land-wind failed, And ice-cold grew the night; And nevermore, on sea or shore, Should Sir Humphrey see the light. He sat upon the deck, The Book was in his hand; "Do not fear! Heaven is as near," He said, "by water as by land!" In the first watch of the night, Without a signal's sound, Out of the sea, mysteriously, The fleet of Death rose all around. The moon and the evening star Were hanging in the shrouds; Every mast, as it passed, Seemed to rake the passing clouds. They grappled with their prize, At midnight black and cold! As of a rock was the shock; Heavily the ground-swell rolled. Southward through day and dark, They drift in cold embrace, With mist and rain, o'er the open main; Yet there seems no change of place. Southward, forever southward, They drift through dark and day; And like a dream, in the Gulf-Stream Sinking, vanish all away.

Of all the rides since the birth of time, Told in story or sung in rhyme, — On Apuleius’s Golden Ass, Or one-eyed Calender’s horse of brass, Witch astride of a human back, Islam’s prophet on Al-Borák, — The strangest ride that ever was sped Was Ireson’s, out from Marblehead! Old Floyd Ireson, for his hard heart, Tarred and feathered and carried in a cart By the women of Marblehead! Body of turkey, head of owl, Wings a-droop like a rained-on fowl, Feathered and ruffled in every part, Skipper Ireson stood in the cart. Scores of women, old and young, Strong of muscle, and glib of tongue, Pushed and pulled up the rocky lane, Shouting and singing the shrill refrain: “Here ’s Flud Oirson, fur his horrd horrt, Torr’d an’ futherr’d an’ corr’d in a corrt By the women o’ Morble’ead!” Wrinkled scolds with hands on hips, Girls in bloom of cheek and lips, Wild-eyed, free-limbed, such as chase Bacchus round some antique vase, Brief of skirt, with ankles bare, Loose of kerchief and loose of hair, With conch-shells blowing and fish-horns’ twang, Over and over the Mænads sang: “Here ’s Flud Oirson, fur his horrd horrt, Torr’d an’ futherr’d an’ corr’d in a corrt By the women o’ Morble’ead!” Small pity for him! — He sailed away From a leaking ship in Chaleur Bay, — Sailed away from a sinking wreck, With his own town’s-people on her deck! “Lay by! lay by!” they called to him. Back he answered, “Sink or swim! Brag of your catch of fish again!” And off he sailed through the fog and rain! Old Floyd Ireson, for his hard heart, Tarred and feathered and carried in a cart By the women of Marblehead! Fathoms deep in dark Chaleur That wreck shall lie forevermore. Mother and sister, wife and maid, Looked from the rocks of Marblehead Over the moaning and rainy sea, — Looked for the coming that might not be! What did the winds and the sea-birds say Of the cruel captain who sailed away? — Old Floyd Ireson, for his hard heart, Tarred and feathered and carried in a cart By the women of Marblehead! Through the street, on either side, Up flew windows, doors swung wide; Sharp-tongued spinsters, old wives gray, Treble lent the fish-horn’s bray. Sea-worn grandsires, cripple-bound, Hulks of old sailors run aground, Shook head, and fist, and hat, and cane, And cracked with curses the hoarse refrain: “Here’s Flud Oirson, fur his horrd horrt, Torr’d an’ futherr’d an’ corr’d in a corrt By the women o’ Morble’ead!” Sweetly along the Salem road Bloom of orchard and lilac showed. Little the wicked skipper knew Of the fields so green and the sky so blue. Riding there in his sorry trim, Like an Indian idol glum and grim, Scarcely he seemed the sound to hear Of voices shouting, far and near: “Here’s Flud Oirson, fur his horrd horrt, Torr’d an’ futherr’d an’ corr’d in a corrt By the women o’ Morble’ead!” “Hear me, neighbors!” at last he cried, — “What to me is this noisy ride? What is the shame that clothes the skin To the nameless horror that lives within? Waking or sleeping, I see a wreck, And hear a cry from a reeling deck! Hate me and curse me, — I only dread The hand of God and the face of the dead!” Said old Floyd Ireson, for his hard heart, Tarred and feathered and carried in a cart By the women of Marblehead! Then the wife of the skipper lost at sea Said, “God has touched him! why should we!” Said an old wife mourning her only son, “Cut the rogue’s tether and let him run!” So with soft relentings and rude excuse, Half scorn, half pity, they cut him loose, And gave him a cloak to hide him in, And left him alone with his shame and sin. Poor Floyd Ireson, for his hard heart, Tarred and feathered and carried in a cart By the women of Marblehead!

I see a beautiful gigantic swimmer swimming naked through the eddies of the sea, His brown hair lies close and even to his head, he strikes out with courageous arms, he urges himself with his legs, I see his white body, I see his undaunted eyes, I hate the swift-running eddies that would dash him head-foremost on the rocks. What are you doing you ruffianly red-trickled waves? Will you kill the courageous giant? will you kill him in the prime of his middle-age? Steady and long he struggles, He is baffled, bang’d, bruis’d, he holds out while his strength holds out, The slapping eddies are spotted with his blood, they bear him away, they roll him, swing him, turn him, His beautiful body is borne in the circling eddies, it is continually bruis’d on rocks, Swiftly and out of sight is borne the brave corpse.

Far out of sight forever stands the sea, Bounding the land with pale tranquillity. When a small child, I watched it from a hill At thirty miles or more. The vision still Lies in the eye, soft blue and far away: The rain has washed the dust from April day; Paint-brush and lupine lie against the ground; The wind above the hill-top has the sound Of distant water in unbroken sky; Dark and precise the little steamers ply- Firm in direction they seem not to stir. That is illusion. The artificer Of quiet, distance holds me in a vise And holds the ocean steady to my eyes. Once when I rounded Flattery, the sea Hove its loose weight like sand to tangle me Upon the washing deck, to crush the hull; Subsiding, dragged flesh at the bone. The skull Felt the retreating wash of dreaming hair. Half drenched in dissolution, I lay bare. I scarcely pulled myself erect; I came Back slowly, slowly knew myself the same. That was the ocean. From the ship we saw Gray whales for miles: the long sweep of the jaw, The blunt head plunging clean above the wave. And one rose in a tent of sea and gave A darkening shudder; water fell away; The whale stood shining, and then sank in spray. A landsman, I. The sea is but a sound. I would be near it on a sandy mound, And hear the steady rushing of the deep While I lay stinging in the sand with sleep. I have lived inland long. The land is numb. It stands beneath the feet, and one may come Walking securely, till the sea extends Its limber margin, and precision ends. By night a chaos of commingling power, The whole Pacific hovers hour by hour. The slow Pacific swell stirs on the sand, Sleeping to sink away, withdrawing land, Heaving and wrinkled in the moon, and blind; Or gathers seaward, ebbing out of mind.

(From Crossportion’s Pastoral) The bottom of the sea has come And builded in my noiseless room The fishes’ and the mermaids’ home, Whose it is most, most hell to be Out of the heavy-hanging sea And in the thin, thin changeable air Or unroom sleep some other where; But play their coral violins Where waters most lock music in: The bottom of my room, the sea. Full of voiceless curtaindeep There mermaid somnambules come sleep Where fluted half-lights show the way, And there, there lost orchestras play And down the many quarterlights come To the dim mirth of my aquadrome: The bottom of my sea, the room.

It's never enough being one. Why do I hope to contain you: always undoing and undone; every place you touch me changes shape. It's not my way to just lie down; to sink, effaced and full. If you swallow me, you're drained, and half of us is gone. Desire's fulfillment is two, not one, or our tidal meetings are through. So hurl your wet force forward, sea, take me wave by wave. Pearl maker, pull me deep; our one's a need, a momentary bliss. What I erect, you spill— castles, boulders, cliffs. My love's endurance grain by grain; your adoration's rain. Touch my bones, my canyon's carved evidence. Even the moon who moves you is stone.