November 2022
Bio Note: Decades ago my grandparents retired to Tampa to manage a citrus grove that later became a mall. My mother lived in Tampa and Lakeland for several years. Later I owned a vacation rental in Manzanita, Oregon that was a one-minute walk to the beach on the northern Oregon coast. I sold that property in 2014 after warnings of rising seas. To help me let go, I wrote Ocean’s Laughter (Kelsay Books, 2016). I offer poems from that book in consideration of all people who love to walk on the beach. The title comes from Neruda's Book of Questions: "Do you not also sense danger at the sea's laughter?"
High Wind Power Outage
Strap on head lamps
like miners scuffling
on carpets of coal. Enter each room
to a flickerless switch,
mere habit of walking,
mere notions of sight
where I left clogs, notebooks,
my mother’s necklace of garnet beads
in disarray, fallen to the dog’s blanket.
A cell link
to the electric company hotline
that doesn’t know the cause,
the location of the blowdown,
when it will end, how cold it will get,
who suffers the most,
what will be lost.
For security reasons
the girl-computer names only
numbers in our address,
not our street, nor our stress
where we walk shiftless
through our hallway tunnel to bed,
your hand pulling mine.
Originally published in Ocean’s Laughter (Kelsay Books, 2016)
After the Storm That Took the Power Out
Logs dangle on rock levee lips near the river’s mouth,
pick-up sticks big as freight cars, silver-medaled
in barnacles. Forest to river to sea to beach.
Men with pick-up trucks and chainsaws
slice up driftwood, firewood
for when power lines fall next time.
Tree debris is my zoo – a giraffe neck,
winsome grasshopper, hook-billed hawk,
the dragon with branching wings
and barbed tail.
I shoot pictures
of the slaying of the wyvern.
Originally published in Ocean’s Laughter (Kelsay Books, 2016)
There Will Be Wave Walkers
Sea-caress sounds draw us
to the rushing in place, the balance
of menace in reigning winds,
the susurrus of solitude.
After my old house
is washed out to sea, rattled to timbers,
and the shore finds its next shape,
there will be walkers, wave watchers.
Originally published in Ocean’s Laughter (Kelsay Books, 2016)
©2022 Tricia Knoll
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