May 2024
Bio Note: Several events recently reminded me of the many years I spent in a small town on Oregon's north coast, Manzanita. My poetry collection Ocean's Laughter (Kelsay Books) pays tribute to this town, its people, culture and change over time. I offer two poems from the book that highlight May.
Mid-Week Mid-Morning May
The weary-making winter winds, I believe, have died.
Sidewalks start to unroll summer.
Two young men in overalls paint the trim
white on the salt-weathered cedar-sided
yoga - massage studio. The fair trade
shop flies its earth flag, three stars-and-stripes
hang limp at the post office, grocery store
and community center. Sales of winter
snuggle-clothes festoon the sidewalks,
hangered kites that sway like old women’s skirts.
For the first time since October, the newspapers sell out
and there’s only day-old doughnuts in the grocery store.
This morning’s silver mist tempts
me to trust the glitz of sunlight’s promise
that life just keeps getting better, sweeter.
SOLVE volunteers have swept the beach
of tsunami styrofoam and ruined shoes,
bits of blue fishing boat rope,
the cigarette butts. Sleepy pillow clouds
hold out on the mountain for afternoon wind.
A bossy raven yanks out the purplish liver
of a wide-open gull while ten crows hover.
The gulls eat anything, and others eat dead gulls.
The surf shop discounts wet suits (mostly smalls),
sail kites and marshmallow shooters (30 minis
in a reload). The peacekeeper model costs
three times more than the camouflage, shoots
a sure thirty feet in dune grass war games.
May ratchets up the rumble of RVs
crossing to Nehalem Bay dunes.
I buy Neruda’s Questions at
Cloud and Leaf. Do you not also sense
danger in the sea’s laughter?
Blessing the Fleet
Garibaldi, Oregon
You might have noticed
many things that May morning.
Light rain. Kids fumbling,
grumbling over life jackets,
the captain’s dirty Pirates’ cap,
how he watches the widow’s walk
down the pier, hesitating to step up
on his deck, lilacs on her arms.
How we shift our bright baskets, making room
for orange azaleas, purple rhododendrons,
store-bought red carnations,
pink camellias, daffodils and dogwoods.
This may not have been the best day,
showers buckling down,
but it is the way we remember
waves crisscrossing Tillamook Bay.
Churning smell of diesel. Seagulls squawking.
Outside the harbor buoys, the captain slows
the motors inside the bar to open ocean.
Our small village drops branches overboard
one bud at a time to an overcast sea,
to bless this season’s fleet
and the fishing.
Names are read
to honor the dead
fishermen lost at sea.
A baby squalls. The captain tracks
where currents seize blossom
floats and crab pot buoys.
The widow’s lilacs linger, drift.
She whispers her one dear name
leaning out to fathoms, conjuring him
in gray-blue shadow spray,
churning purple blooms in her wake
of yesterday’s retreating sea.
So the names are said.
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