Sea Level
May 1 2009


At 2,000 feet
and climbing.
The engine groans
on steep inclines and switch-back roads,
straining higher.
Gears shift
the clutch slips
the revs dip lower;
tires spin-out
on gravel shoulders.

I wonder what it’s like
back at sea level
— the neutral ground, the great leveller
that is the measure
of all things.
Mired
in dead calm, the doldrums,
a flat Sargasso ocean
all the way out to the edge —
water
gently lapping at the shore.
Land and sea
in perfect equilibrium.

Here, every foot costs,
a hard slog
covering ground, heading higher.
The thin air.
The sheer drop
off to one side.
The sun, gone early
behind the steep horizon.

Until I finally reach the continental divide,
its jagged peak
as far from the exhausted shore
as possible.
Where I may stop;
occupy the high-ground,
my sightlines unassailable.
Or coast all the way down the far side,
free-wheeling
to another ocean.
A fresh start
at sea level once more.

Where the air is thick,
the land easy,
the setting sun
lingers.
And I will take big nourishing breaths,
replenished
and cleansed.





Looking back, it’s hard to know where this poem came from. I do recall sitting down with an idea that I was rather excited about ...and then after running around doing a bit of busy work, completely forgot about it!!! (I guess if it was that forgettable, maybe it wasn't worth pursuing anyway ...lol!) So all I can remember is sitting there (here), chewing on my pen, having no ideas, and seriously considering abandoning the effort; then kind of free-associating until I latched on to an image that stuck. I may have been thinking about driving out on questionable back roads to Debbie Metzler's to pick up the bird house she’s made for me, and then got this image of the Jeep digging through dirt roads, climbing higher, wondering how far above sea level ...which is when the central idea of that powerful and ubiquitous reference point -- "sea level" -- came to me. I quite like the line “the measure of all things”. It makes me think of how we conveniently measure everything in the length of football fields, or how much you can fit in an Olympic-sized pool. But with this essential additional sense of “levelness”: a calm, level-headed default position. So it goes ...

This is also another poem about escape and re-invention. The road-trip, in particular. The shore left behind is an exhausted place, a weedy Sargasso sea, where the author risks being mired, becalmed. Or he has already become so. While the high ground becomes a fortress. And on the far side, sea level represents a kind of level-headedness; a return to sanity; the sort of calm that is predictable and welcome, rather than stultifying. (I probably over-did it at the very end!)

As usual, of course, the most fun part is the word play: “switch”/“shift”/“slip”/“dip”/“spin”, for a start; and then later on "costs"/“slog”/”drop”/"off"/”gone”/”stop”.