Half century old sailboat propped up
with a heavy winter blanket tight
against its hull like the body of one
who worked long to earn this rest,
I climbed the ladder and dove under
the covers to see what secrets
the seas had shared with the winches,
sails, and lines about unheard rhythms.
Rocking quietly over waves and swells
had scribbled a story across the deck,
wound within the wheel of the helm
and held inside the cabin and bunks.
Without hesitating I threw my heart
as a lifeline to this old mermaid
knowing the modest asking price
to be a disguise of deeper troubles.
Three years later still trying to learn
how water and breeze bend canvas
into a bird wing to fly watery flow,
still spellbound how land slips by.
Now, I hear differing notes sound
in clinking halyard against the mast,
a cymbal in an orchestra of wind
but higher than a soprano voice.
Phoenicians and Greeks are present,
crew of each sail, feeling them still
flapping in the canvas and waves,
held for ages by love of the sea.
When the engine is first shut off,
a silence stronger than any word
of spoken promise gathers in the sails
pushing me into a gust of joy.
Published in Cider Press Review, Volume 25, Issue 5.
Glen A. Mazis taught philosophy for decades at Penn State Harrisburg, retiring in 2020. He has more than 90 poems in literary journals, including Rosebud, The North American Review, Sou’wester, Spoon River Poetry Review, Willow Review, Atlanta Review, Reed Magazine and Asheville Poetry Review, and the collection, The River Bends in Time (Anaphora Literary Press, 2012), a chapbook, The Body Is a Dancing Star (Orchard Street Press, 2020), and another collection, Bodies of Space and Time (Kelsay Books, 2022). He has published five philosophy books with the most recent being, Merleau-Ponty and the Face of the World: Silence, Ethics, Imagination and Poetic Ontology (SUNY Press). He is the 2019 winner of the Malovrh-Fenlon Poetry Prize (Orchard Street national contest).
See all items about Glen Mazis
