Monday, May 27, 2013

Keeping Watch


Earlier today, we wound our way 
through lush lavender and green, 
bougainvillea cascading red down terra cotta walls.
A stuccoed portico covered round tiles
that spilled like pools of smooth latte 
around the curve of the pink pebbled drive.

The path around the house 
separated hibiscus from bird of paradise, 
split this shaded view of the distant ocean 
from mid afternoon sun.
Intermittent winds gusted hard, 
turning left out of Africa.

They blew harder still on the open terrace 
where brown fingers rubbed lime and salt onto glasses, 
their rims ringing with each twist 
of the hand.  
We witnessed the sea turn 
from jade to aqua then violet
while shaved ice melted into tequila.
Mammoth rocks jutted out of the water 
where longtails and cahows rested, 
keeping watch over ebb tide,
like us.  

Steel drums beckoned us down to the beach.  
We wove along the narrow path through sea grass 
onto a long pier that met the mound of late sun 
at the horizon.
The pictures we took show us in silhouette, 
orange spreading out over the water behind us. 
You can’t see our faces, 
only that 
black wind had whipped our hair out 
like the spine of the lionfish as it slid 
among crevices of a murky cave
far below low tide.  

Strange, there’s a safe abandon this far out over the water. 
Just under us waves writhe dark, foreign,
and tufts of plants with white tendrils waver 
like ghosts in slow motion.
Earlier our glass-bottomed boat slid over 
gnarled conchs and sporadic seaweed, 
and some fish like aliens walked the ocean floor.

They are below us here too, 
and more.  

This afternoon,
we had followed the flight of two lone seagulls
winging over turquoise swells,
white caps running like fingers over a key board.   
They had swooped down to fish 
from a school of grouper on the surface, 
then retreated. 
The cloudless sky had offered 
yet another empirical look,
to keep watch
over the incessant turn of  tides
and all that belongs below. 

© Susan Muse, 2013

Lionfish
Photo by Daniel Dietrick
Wikimedia Commons

1 comment:

jean said...

This is a lovely poem, full of delights for the senses! Not a word was wasted!