Makes a
Rational Line
I had three
encouragements—1st, a smooth, calm sea; 2ndly, the tide rising, and setting in
to the shore; 3rdly, what little wind there was blew me towards the land.
-
Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe
My line
of sight stretches from our back porch
out to
the Sound, and then bends where the marsh
in May
is turning green,
and over the marsh
to a
lacey scrim of surf right angled to my line.
you’d never be able
to sing any of this
there are blue blossoms
on the Lilac bush
Even up
close, the sea stays that far away.
Its
mysteries are older than almost anything.
Most of
it
lies underneath the often wild
surface
and it’s the wind that kicks that up.
The depths
are very still, dark, and cold.
a frantic house wren
caught by its own claws
in the window screen
his life before his eyes
The
waves rise up in the wind, come onto shore
and
shatter against the rocks,
their white fingers
clawing
at the sky. They’ve been sent in here
from
long distances by the wind, from far
out to
sea, where it makes swells as big as hills.
in the time we’ve been
here, all the leaves
have come out on the trees
is how shade is made
No one
here ever sits on the shore and turns their
back to
the sea.
a cormorant’s as black
as the rock he waits on
low tide reveals the smell
of uncovered molluscs
Charles
D. Tarlton
Charles D. Tarlton is a retired politics professor who has been
writing poetry and short prose since 2006. He lives in Old Saybrook, Connecticut
with his wife, Ann Knickerbocker, an abstract painter, and a black female
standard poodle named Nikki.
He published poetry since 2006 has appeared in Jack Magazine, Shampoo, Review Americana, Tipton, Barnwood, Abramelin, Ink, Sweat, and Tears, The Houston Literary Review, Simply Haiku, Haibun Today, Ink, Sweat, and Tears, Atlas Poetica, Contemporary Haibun Online, Blue and Yellow Dog, Shot Glass, Sketchbook, Skylark, Six Minute Magazine, Cricket Online Review, Red Booth Review, Linden Avenue Literary Journal, Rattle, Dark Matter, Muse India, Inner Art Journal, Prune Juice, Ekphrastic Review, Blackbox Manifold (UK), Undertow Tanka Review, Spirit Wind Gallery, Randomly Accessed Poetics, Ribbons, Unbroken Journal, KYSO Flash, Ekphrastic Review, tinywords, Red Lights, The Journal (UK), Tallow Eider Quarterly, The American Aesthetic, London Grip, Book Ends Review, Ilanot Review, Clackamas Literary Review, Peacock Journal, Innisfree Poetry Journal, Nebo, and Palette.