This is how I have been.
The Absence of Blue
Odysseus and Penelope both
she can defend home
as she searches for it.
as she makes her way back.
It is through a blindfolded night
she screams
and waves weapons at the sky
steers her steel skis
soft with the schwush
through powder snow
slices the moonlight
into barely audible beams
of rainbow
with all colors drawn out
but the absence of blue.
It casts the world now
in perpetual twilight;
still she sweeps
on up, click in down
crunching ice, feasting
fasting, fucking, breathing
lured, kept
then dashed on rocks
then risen proud, wet
with ice, melted blood
following always
low visceral silent beating thump
grouse call drum beat
siren song
of high lonesome open
territory defined by sky
the endless terrain
of indrawn air
of home
The Industrial Ocean
Among the grease grime
of the oil stove
salmon slime, empty time
among the screamers’ cries
harsh and high
like a seagull eating eyes
of dead humpies at low tide
among the constant hum
of diesel, sweat
come the words
that we hold
safe through the set
the string
the delivery
to the tender
the cannery
the loadup at the fuel dock
the grocery run
the manic hazy nights
on shore.
We don’t know why.
Bewildered as a salmon
reaching his returning time
we keep these words
for the weather days in coves
nights dry in a smelly bunk
before six hardcrashed hours
pen trailing on paper
and well-used.
We save them for the flight home
the long boring
other deckhand’s wheel watch
Playboy and VHS and sleep
exhausted
across the Gulf of Alaska
save them
for the tiny corners of solitude
we find
when no one’s looking.
We know the same whips of song
blow through steel rigging
as did through hemp rope
iron ring, linen sail, clacking claw
frantic slapping fin.
We write because we hear
the same secret song
as the chants and groans
of whaling oarsmen
in the coughing growl
of a running Cummins diesel
hydraulic block whine
mike key beep
of the VHF
in the quotas and dramas
and legend and lore
love for the life at sea
and disdain for the shit on shore.
Later we will raise our voices
out in rowdy public houses
where we’re the same as any sailors
bringing ancient singing forward
reek like diesel stumbling wasted
walking heavy pavement laid
above the tracks
of older docks
full of grateful music
meant for
all we see returned to shore.
Out there we
keep quiet
let
the industrial ocean
sing its new
and ancient song
and
in our work
we sing along.
