Snail Spirals

My contribution to the Fourth Annual Blogger's (Silent) Poetry Reading:



Ocean Eyes
by Sue Brady

Images collected,
Deep in my unconscious mind:

Jasper Beach spangled in September sun,
Frozen in winter snow,
Pebbles awash and singing,
Little Moose Island, rare and quiet,
Bayberry, rose hips and urchin shells,
Make sure you check the tides.
Quoddy Head draped and wreathed in fog,
Cliffs of impossible beauty.
Herds of periwinkles
And scurrying crabs,
Everywhere cushioned with seaweed.
Chilly northern July mornings
When to breathe the salt tang
Is to know heaven.

Carolina Beach, Fort Fisher,
Sandflats alive with birds,
Rodanthe, where the ghost crabs burrow
Hatteras, Frisco, Buxton, summerheat pressing my skin.
Figure Eight Island drifted with shells
After the hurricane.
Not empty,
Not plain,
These plains of sand.

Jakle’s Lagoon in spring’s chill
Eagle nest, rafts of scoters,
Orchids hiding in the moss.
Ripples lapping at Eagle Cove,
Rueben Tarte, South Beach, Lime Kiln,
Misty winter and brilliant summer,
Where orcas hunt and play.
Gooseneck barnacles and sea stars cling
Above the anemone pool.
Waves and foghorn mourn in counterpoint,
And every day is Friday.

Now an inland shore
Of cattails and rushes and tule,
Shallow water.
Ladd Marsh, resplendent in June
Gathering, chattering, flocks on the move,
Mountains all around this shore.
Fly away, flyway.
Hot dry wind-waves
Blow across the prairie,
The tide echoes in the streams,
Rising and falling on a seasonal scale.
No waves, no tide
But it seems a shore to me.

Sea views and sea sounds
Catch the heart of a child,
Forever in their grasp,
Imprinted on my soul.
Nothing looks the same
When seen with ocean eyes.

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