Where a Poem Has a Smell
Along the upper estuary,
boats laid beached on mud
like whales you see
on news clips stranded
helpless in the drained shallows
of a low tide. These boats
too were out of their natural world
of water and easy float,
their freedom was the distance
swung on the arc of a rope.
We would clamber up their listing
hulls and into the ribbed
bellies of the bigger boats,
huddle in the dank,
fish foul air of cabins
and turn wheels hard to port.
They were the holds loaded
with the cargoes of our childhood.
Later, there was a sad absence
occupying the helm, neglect
peeling the paint and seeding
rot into weathered timber.
They stunk of decay.
Most boats were abandoned,
fastened for years
to the monotony of tides,
sentenced for life
to lift and fall on the same spot
or sink and be broken up.
And yet they remain anchor points
to what is real, positioned
as it were in a world where things
can be felt, have substance
and assume a shape
mirrored in your mind.
They float secure
on a sea of nothingness whose
sterile depths beckon and beguile
and would claim poetry
to feed the ethereal swans
of Stephane Mallarme.
Here is where a poem
has a smell as well
as make you feel and think
without recourse to meaning,
becoming mere magic.
Copyright © Paul Willason | Year Posted 2023
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