Notes About The Poem
Having photographed a boat’s perseverance to stay afloat for the past few years at Gold Beach, Oregon, I’m reminded of how nature offers many opportunities to discover the paradox of life and death.
Life Atop Death
Life atop Death
by Odin Roark
A fishing trawl freckled by rust
Decaying by salt air and sun
Washed aground many decades past
Still holding to life
Like listening to the breath of nature
Awaiting tomorrow’s sunrise
Where another inch into the sand
Awaits more seeds aloft form shore
Settling upon once polished reflection
Now but mulchified oak and teak
Ready to perhaps nurture a different life
How proud this floating casket
Unwilling to sink into oblivion
Mushrooms luxuriating as offered bouquets
Rising atop the growing mossy knoll
While sprouting weeds where once the captain stood
Stretch skyward in gratitude
Here
Rests the unwilling death
Where once heavy with daily catch awaiting market
Now can only listen
As the next crumbling movement
Bows oceanward
Chanting its ohm of calm
Slowly sinking
But not fallen
Shrinking
But not gone
Would that we might know such peaceful isolation
Waiting for the darkness below
To forgive the oft blinding light above
And exercise the final embrace
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