Best Childhoodsea Poems
Do you have any idea how much “doo” a giant sea turtle can do?
How much tortoise “surprise” it can present to you?
You think cow plop is big? Put a cow plop on a pile of “surprise”.
You will laugh til tears come into your eyes.
In one of those “interactive” animal farms for which Florida is so noted,
was a huge sea turtle, it obviously felt bloated.
And right in the midst of the path, it nonchalantly deposited a stool.
My daughter stepped in the middle of the pool.
Wearing sandals no less, this immediately became a job for dear old dad,
anything to do with “doo” was my job to be had.
It was easy enough to lift her out of the pile, but the sandal was smothered.
That’s already too much detail, but it was recovered.
Daughter and sandal to the bathroom to remove the tortoise delight.
After that, believe me, we avoided zoos outright.
© Sept 17 2010 For Barbara's zoo contest
On an early morning walk of coffee and salt
under a sullen sky filled with the tridents of wings,
I add my footprints beside a blowsy sea (praised be
Poseidon,) that accepts the given of a northeast wind,
and the still mirror of a summer day. This ocean's re-
chargeable, my one immutable constant, except for shifting
cobalt, soda bottle green, the edgy, unsettling gray
of northeast storms. She alone, resurrects the child in me--
the girl of full moon nights and open windows, the fledgling
woman alone in an old garage apartment in her
hometown, where a carnelian sun set over fishing
vessels and empty river-front packing plants.
I share my ocean with other insomniacs. Runners pass,
racing the sun to its zenith. Down the beach there is Yoga,
and a contemplative in his lawn chair watches the hypnotic
breakers form and reform with their zebra patterns,
driven, as they are, to decorate the shoreline, to deposit
spittle for scavenger sanderlings, chasing miniscule
morsels. The haughty gulls' absolute arrogance is skewered
by their spindly legs, negotiated so nimbly, two
seem a single navigation.
Where are the donax when the waves roll back, hard-
wired to burrow their small shells in wet sand? Are they
history, as in sea oats I may not pick, sand hills I may not
climb, seines no longer dragged by neighborhood guys
bare-chested in waist deep surf to snare slippery supper.
"Dommage"! "Que lastima"! All of the above. As for myself,
I sail my colors high, no pity here--"Tout change, tout
change, tout a' grandi' like the sea urchin I once
was, washing away the blemishes of being.