POEMS/ Tempests
Approaching Thunder Storm. Martin Johnson Heade, 1859
Tempests
After "Approaching Thunderstorm" by Martin Johnson Heade
Somewhere on some horizon
a storm is always building
with mounds of clouds so dark
they turn the world to ink,
and somewhere there’s a rower
who’s pumping towards the shore,
a sailboat tacking slowly to reach home
before the rain streaks down.
On shore may be a fisherman
sitting on a driftwood plank
with his little dog, spectators
of this tempest, in an amphitheater
still and menacing and black
as the sky’s greedy mouth
begins to close the gap of light
between clouds and sea.
Yet, in this scene it is the light
that matters, the green-gold banks,
the white sail drying on the shore,
yellow red and orange garb of the fisherman
who waits.
Tempests appears in All Roads Go Where They Will (Antrim House, 2010) and issue #56 of the Weekly Avocet
After "Approaching Thunderstorm" by Martin Johnson Heade
Somewhere on some horizon
a storm is always building
with mounds of clouds so dark
they turn the world to ink,
and somewhere there’s a rower
who’s pumping towards the shore,
a sailboat tacking slowly to reach home
before the rain streaks down.
On shore may be a fisherman
sitting on a driftwood plank
with his little dog, spectators
of this tempest, in an amphitheater
still and menacing and black
as the sky’s greedy mouth
begins to close the gap of light
between clouds and sea.
Yet, in this scene it is the light
that matters, the green-gold banks,
the white sail drying on the shore,
yellow red and orange garb of the fisherman
who waits.
Tempests appears in All Roads Go Where They Will (Antrim House, 2010) and issue #56 of the Weekly Avocet
