Mountains of Ocean: 10 Waves
a water journey of poetry and art
by Karen Pierce Gonzalez
Wave I
Once
we did not know
what lived beyond our own seaboards.
Curious about unfamiliar shells, bird bones,
and driftwoods that washed up
from somewhere else
we set out to find where other than here was.
Some sought profit, others adventure or freedom.
None in search of shadows.
Wave II
The captain
peers over the ship’s bow, salt air licking his skin.
The voyage, a bold measure he makes of himself.
No matter how long the trip or how many lives
bundled in groups behind him
drop into the dark terrain between worlds,
he survives.
He has a right to become rich
off the fractured fancies of others.
Rarely beats his wife and children when home,
worships a steepled, blue-eyed god whose hand
rests on his broad shoulders;
a privilege for only a few.
When he leans forward, the weight of this advantage
moves the boat more swiftly.
Wave III
The merchant
does not mention cramped berths in the boat’s belly, rats everywhere.
Or else we might not book passage.
Unable to sell hope
he would spend his days regretting the chance he’d not taken to become
a wharf partner who enjoys return cargo-
cacao, tobacco, and rum.
So he promises those sailing away
the galley crew knows songs to cure seasickness.
Wave IV
Traders
of saffron in camel-hair pouches
sleep in the company of perfumed women
while their company ships are readied to cross the big blue
until signs of danger appear.
A red sunrise or roped strands of dried seaweed
will stop sailors from lifting anchor -
marine dragons might swallow them whole.
Wave V
As spinster
she knows to look forward, not back
at what’s now gone.
Unmarried; the word sticks to her tongue, but she won’t swallow it.
A man may become husband,
but can he also midwife her poems?
She crosses this mountainous ocean, seeks the company
of others her age who sing sonnets and sketch
lunar light in shades of just-because.
Wave VI
As stowaway
the boy comes out only at night
when the moon turns her back,
when slumber replaces the need
of others to ask for his family name
his village, his craft.
He now has none.
Hiding among barrels of grain
and bales of straw for goats,
he casts no shadow.
Forgets the feel of sunlight
on his skin and how his mother
might have cried
when she woke to find him gone.
Wave VII
Her daughter
pale face parched, hair brittled into submission
by ocean gales, is tenderly alive.
She wipes the girl’s mouth,
slides oat cake crumbs between maiden lips,
bites her own to hold back her good fortune –
those who have lost loved ones
may find no solace in such news.
Wave VIII
A swashbuckler,
a mere lad at play,
who steals valuable treasures
(pewter candlesticks, a gold locket, his grandmother’s heart)
falls
to
dysentery
is
dropped
into the briny ocean wilds.
She beseeches the Good Lord
to raise his soul up out of this mournful sea
(whose creatures may find his taste pleasing).
Wave IX
Husband
and wife are given one berth
perfectly sized for a child to share.
A slender thing, she lies in the net;
he just inches beneath
to stop
the fall
should she slip out.
After a fortnight her body
lays portside among others.
He cannot bring himself to sleep
where she once did.
On his back
spine against the hull’s wooden floor
he dreams of her only once.
Damp brown eyes gaze
into his fate:
a new life
with another.
He won’t cling so tightly to this one.
Wave X
On new land
most of us empty-handed, empty-hearted,
hungry to make sense of sandless dreams dreamt,
stuff ourselves with land grabs and berries.
Some push aside stargazer legends of weather
and strangers who share the same sky
but follow the stars elsewhere.
Wetted with despair, we toss salt
over our shoulders to ward off bad luck.
Still, it clings to our sunburnt necks.
Afraid we will not survive this wild,
we set traps to maim native life,
cannibalize any scent of trust
we might have in them
not knowing the broken spine ghosts
of such ill-gotten choices
will forever haunt our sleep.
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