Making Way
—Narragansett Bay 1960
We part from the dock
slow as disengaging lovers
one landlocked the other a
floater who won’t be
kept at bay
The diminishing pier slides back
its bollards and planks deploy
to some other place not here
but to a distancing otherworld—
the tether breaks
as stern-first we pass the
channel buoy
….Quarter back, the O-D says.
….Quarter back, aye sir,
….and we slip away
….Steer two one zero, half ahead.
….Two one zero, half ahead, aye sir,
….and we slow-slide down
….the gleaming bay
The sun’s so keen it indicates
a tern on the roof of a big estate
a half mile away
with its long lawn hill
off the starboard bow
which slopes down clear
through the wind-wove air
to a point where jades meet blues
…………….–which passes now
as we part the sea while
making way
Further south the sea’s first chops
begin to unsettle our sheltered
adolescent cruise
Near the harbor mouth all decks
rise then make their first
supplicating bows to whatever
god it is that intervenes
to call-off wrecks
—we’re juggled gently first in
Neptune’s law as
pitches rolls & heaves
meet yaws
Gray billows diesel from our raked stacks
Halyards snap against the mast’s steel
Gulls abundantly rise & reel
over the white chaos of our wake’s track
Sunlight splinters
into rippled billions
upon each breaker’s
sequined breast
before it folds
in a white rush falling
to the soul percussion
of a bow-wave’s
,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,shush shush shush
by Jim Culleny; Nov, 2009