Dazzling Dinoflagellates

We gather when the moon is hidden

in earth shadow, stand in a group to hear facts,

take advice, don life jackets that cover our lungs,

our hearts.  We drive toward a cove at the

salt sea edge where the plankton proliferate,

persist in a small shallow bay with its twisted neck

to the sea, its reef a wall that holds them in.  These

bright, tiny organisms, single cell, simple we call them,

beckon us to witness their wonder. Under wisps

of night light we load into kayaks, follow one

dim beacon. Only paddle sounds dipping, dripping,

pulling on water.  Last light tucks under the earth,

dark descends fully, fills the space that holds us. 

The enchantment begins.  Under every boat

a lining of light, each paddle's dip is a brush

painting sparkle.  Even the fish surface

in small blue spotlights, descend exposed.

These uncountable beings dance ghostly

glimmering with every splash we make.

I sink my arm in the cool cove, skin glows

blue.  Lift lighted water in both cupped hands,

let it fall back twinkling into the bay, dots of glitter

on my fingers, my palm -- I am holding starlight.

© Marti Snell, 2016

(Snell, Martha E. “Dazzling Dinoflagellates.” Streetlight Magazine, Fall, 2016. Issue No.19, Web 16 October. http://streetlightmag.com/2016/12/09/dazzling-dinoflagellates-by-martha-snell/)

Bioluminescent Algae at Vieques Bay, Puerto Rico
courtesy of jenonajetplane.com

Noble and Sentimental

Eight-thirty.  It’s dark in the room 

at my daughter’s house. Just across 

a blackened lawn the Quaker church 

glows—eight double windows 

blazing bright.  Twelve people pair 

as partners face-to-face, one hand 

on a shoulder, another at a waist, 

two clasped firm, held up high. 

Six couples move, flow over the floor, 

ONE two-three, ONE two-three, 

gliding out of sight, back in view,

out of sight. No music permeates 

the night, silence separates them 

from me. But dresses whirl, couples 

twirl, shoes barely brush the floor.  

I can hear my last waltz so long

ago—Strauss, maybe Ravel.  Lord, 

let me dance this fleeting life.

© Martha E. Snell, 2019

A couple dancing
Photo by Alvin Mahmudov
Originally posted on Unsplash;
from Wikimedia Commons

Vanishing

Was it last week I boarded a plane in Botswana, zebras on the 

runway, hot as hell?  Lifted up from hippo ponds, carried 

past Lilac-Breasted Rollers, today I’m back home to 

snow on the ground, bean soup bubbling on my 

stove.  Of every savanna glory, I’m still 

spellbound by the cheetah’s stare, 

head bobbing like a compass 

point, with padded gait of a 

nimble stalker.   These 

slender cats of highway 

speed, spotted skin, 

rudder tails, they 

are finite, 

they are 

retreating 

into shiny 

pages on 

bookshelves 

where 

almost all 

rhinoceros 

live. 

© Marti Snell, 2018

Two cheetahs
Photo by Gary Stolz, US Fish & Wildlife Service
from Wikimedia Commons

Gravity

The footway we walk sketches brown 

lines on green fields that seem to hover 

over the Irish Sea. All around us sheep 

and cows hold their mouths to grass, 

unmindful of heaven. This perpetual path 

traces cliffs, cuts into rock, curdles to mud, 

descends onto beaches of rock draped in 

laver fronds, home to codling and flounder. 

Kelp, clams, fishermen, children who 

splash and swim, all know the sea’s routine. 

Even Annie the cab driver knows the tidal 

ways: in out in out days nights unending. 

It’s the far away sun and the pale moon.

We are new to this isle, walk the age-old 

ring around it, study a chart of days in May 

till we know the minute sea rise hits 

its highest, sinks to its lowest on the shores 

of Moelfre, Cemaes, Red Wharf Bay, and 

Puffin Island where rats have captured the roost.

Under May’s full moon water surges 23 feet, 

then falls away, a film rewound to its start.  

When the shore goes dry, tide pools become

small seas. People throw sticks, dogs bound out 

on a shimmering beach. Boats sit askew with

nothing to do. We walk the expanse of sand, 

sink into rivulets still flowing back to the sea. 

It’s the far away sun and the pale moon,

silence of unseen forces,

unremitting.

© Marti Snell, 2017

Traeth Mawr begins to emerge as the waters ebb
Photo by Eric Jones
from Wikimedia Commons

Saturday Night in Batesville

You must arrive early at the old country store, 

parking lot’s small. Find a seat, a bite to eat, 

glass of wine, check the time then look around 

for Bobby Midnight and his band. Tables are full, 

people standing, yak-yaking crowds the space,

baby peers from pack on back, one mama runs 

to fetch her child, senior fans refill their drinks, 

and friends hail friends with rowdy hugs.  

One, then two, all six show up, beat up cases 

held in hand, hats buoyant on thin-haired heads. 

They shuffle on stage, open up bags, pull out 

possibilities: three guitars quiver, trumpet and sax 

glitter, stacked set of drums sits. These man-boys 

lean in to get the tuning right. The crowd booms 

then quiets as if testing for song.  Oh, there’s going 

to be some music on this warm spring night.

Funky tunes fly, fill the room, seep out windows 

step out doors.  Dancing couples, women clusters, 

dad with a daughter all pack the floor of that 

overhauled space. One man and a woman are fluid 

in leather bottomed shoes, possessed.  They swoon, 

sweat, press for more Billy Joel’s rock and roll. 

The local birdman holds a gallon pickle jar, 

trolls the room crying: gratuities for the band.  

Riding home, the man and woman still are dancing

in the moonlight.  And there it is -- bright bulging 

white shines their faces, lights up hay fields, 

rolls over foothills, crowns the Blue Ridge. 

© Marti Snell, 2017

Dance at a Country Inn
by Rafael Benjumea
Carmen Thyssen Museum, Malaga, Spain
from Wikimedia Commons

Like roofers

we climb over each other, slipping and catching the other’s 

hands until our feet are steady.  We check eaves, clear leaves, smooth 

wrinkles in the casing, then fall to the heat of our slate-shingled skin.

We are a choir, ensemble of song, just two mouths earnest in 

harmony.  We make mice in the walls weep, our voices pound 

tympani, take captive the inner ear of all who stand near.

We are Isabella Bird in Kurdistan, Nelly Bly circling earth, Marco Polo 

riding Mongol empires. We navigate by planets and stars, by the dark 

pulse of our organs, by pupils meeting pupils, grasses’ murmur at our feet –   

With no permission, seven decades in, we hike up stairs, climb to highlands, 

walk inclines foreign to our peers, heights newly reached to see Bar-headed 

Geese cross the Himalayas four miles up, to hear a bank of trumpets shout.  

We scale high level étage, Mares’ tails frozen above, countryside 

spread out like a toy town, gray and brown squares, dots of green, living 

bodies too small to see, some wet in wombs, some soon to die.  

I turn on the radio 

will myself to hear the news – 

only stories of us.

© Marti Snell, 2016

Mares' Tails by Nicholas A. Tonelli
from Wikimedia Commons

Rivanna River South of Town

Upstream the surface begins flat, mirror shine. 

Cool current flows under two kayaks 

glowing red and green. 

Noise of trains, trucks, cars gone.  Hands 

grip the paddle pole, arms stretch, drop, pull, 

blade rises falls, left, right. Trickle of drops.

Sun falls warm on the shoulders. Blue blossoms 

of figworts float by the hundreds like babies 

asleep in baskets on this June afternoon.  

Dark ovals dot the length of a log until 

claws and legs poke out, push, and 

drop into the stream.  

Ahead the river whispers, speaks, then shouts 

its rushing tones. Earth falls, river follows 

making eddies, bubbles, splash, flash -- which way to go? 

We are carried -- rising, falling, dashing, daring, 

rounding rocks, scraping rocks, tipping, untamed, 

sliding through foam, arriving to calm.  

High above, wing sweep, flashes of white, 

two Bald Eagles ride rivers of air, one wheels up, 

looks down and spots the colors we ride. 

Steering under Ironwoods, I climb out into water, 

give my body to its movement.  Head, feet, arms, 

hair gathered up in the river’s peace.

© Marti Snell, 2016

Rocks in the Rivanna
Photo by Tony Russell

Boy Who Waits

His smile opens over a missing 

front tooth. Perhaps he’s eight, 

maybe nine. A gray wool cap 

hangs on his forehead, jacket 

buttoned, black.  He perches on 

the end of a planked bench and 

waits as instructed.  He holds 

his hand on a plaid red blanket 

draped across the bench -- is it 

his mother’s fringed shawl -- maybe, 

it is worn, it is dear.  He looks straight 

at Chagall as if posing one century 

ago in Paris, or was it Vitebsk?  

Morning sunrays warm the walls, the 

floor of a room that seems cozy, 

except the doors that are padlocked 

and the barren space -- lock, bench, 

cupboard, a dustpan, rose-colored jug 

stored high, out of his reach.  

Scarce color in this painting, the boy’s 

feet are on the floor.  No magic cows or 

smiling horse, no lovers float above. 

This was what the artist painted, nothing 

more about the boy.  Imagine him painted 

now -- would the lock be gone, the title new?

or would nothing change -- the boy sitting

idle, waiting as told, faint hues of 

red and rose -- still the village idiot.

© Marti Snell, 2015

Painting: “The Village Idiot” by Marc Chagall (1914-15)

 http://www.metmuseum.org/collection/the-collection-online/search/483517   

Painted in Paris but likely an image from his home near Vitebsk, Belarus - part of the Russian Empire. Oil and graphite on paper (49.5 x 37.8 cm). In the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

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