Tide
Table
May 11 2015
You can look up the tides
in an official guide
that's down to the minute,
a clockwork universe
predictably turning
on its predetermined course.
How reassuring
to feel yourself in orbit
around vast invisible forces,
going about their work
with supreme indifference.
How powerless, and small
you see yourself.
Stop for just a minute
and you can watch its steady rise.
So unlike life,
where plants grow, and age declines
imperceptibly,
until that day you realize
how fast, how short.
I have always resided
on an inland lake,
land-locked
in the middle of a continent
of ancient rock.
Its water cold and sweet
its constant shore.
Dead, compared to the sea,
with its smell of fish
and decomposition
and briny weeds.
A living planet
breathing in and out
and in again,
its steadily beating heart
inexhaustible.
Leaving a damp apron of sand
packed down hard.
And small lines of froth,
where its tongue
has licked the beach
as water slowly recedes.
"Journal" is derived from the French "jour": similar to the origin of "journeyman", or day-worker. So if brianspoetryjournal is to be taken literally, I should be writing daily. Which, as it turns out, I pretty much do. But now, it's been over a week, and this poem indirectly explains my absence: I went south for a few days. An uncharacteristic journey, since I prefer travelling in my head far more than the rigours of actual travel. Anyway, I couldn't write away from home. And I there were even some niggling doubts as to whether I would ever write again, notwithstanding getting back. So I'm pleased with this poem. And especially pleased that it didn't turn out too prolix or complicated; because the pressure of language builds up, and can all too easily burst out and overflow.
"Long walks on the beach" sounds like a dating profile cliché; but that's what we often did. It was a narrow beach, so we needed to time it by the tides. I learned that there are printed guides to this celestial schedule. And I felt what it was like to have your daily routine determined according to vast, indifferent, and invisible forces. Living on lakes all my life, I've never had to contend with tides.
As usual, I've taken some poetic license here. In particular -- and to defend the Turks and Caicos -- there was none of that fishy maritime smell. Not only is it a coral island with a relatively unproductive near-shore, but the steady trade-winds scour the air of anything unpleasant.
I like the idea of orders of magnitude that operate in parallel and never intersect. Here, it's on the axis of time: the geological scale of time and tide, in contrast with the human scale of life. I also like the telescoping in and out, from cosmos to microcosm: so the opening stanza has giant spheres circling in space, while in the closing one the aperture narrows and the focal length shortens as the reader's eye is brought down to earth and back to the beach. My favourite poetry is mostly about microcosm: the close observation of small daily detail. So this is a fitting way to end.
that's down to the minute,
a clockwork universe
predictably turning
on its predetermined course.
How reassuring
to feel yourself in orbit
around vast invisible forces,
going about their work
with supreme indifference.
How powerless, and small
you see yourself.
Stop for just a minute
and you can watch its steady rise.
So unlike life,
where plants grow, and age declines
imperceptibly,
until that day you realize
how fast, how short.
I have always resided
on an inland lake,
land-locked
in the middle of a continent
of ancient rock.
Its water cold and sweet
its constant shore.
Dead, compared to the sea,
with its smell of fish
and decomposition
and briny weeds.
A living planet
breathing in and out
and in again,
its steadily beating heart
inexhaustible.
Leaving a damp apron of sand
packed down hard.
And small lines of froth,
where its tongue
has licked the beach
as water slowly recedes.
"Journal" is derived from the French "jour": similar to the origin of "journeyman", or day-worker. So if brianspoetryjournal is to be taken literally, I should be writing daily. Which, as it turns out, I pretty much do. But now, it's been over a week, and this poem indirectly explains my absence: I went south for a few days. An uncharacteristic journey, since I prefer travelling in my head far more than the rigours of actual travel. Anyway, I couldn't write away from home. And I there were even some niggling doubts as to whether I would ever write again, notwithstanding getting back. So I'm pleased with this poem. And especially pleased that it didn't turn out too prolix or complicated; because the pressure of language builds up, and can all too easily burst out and overflow.
"Long walks on the beach" sounds like a dating profile cliché; but that's what we often did. It was a narrow beach, so we needed to time it by the tides. I learned that there are printed guides to this celestial schedule. And I felt what it was like to have your daily routine determined according to vast, indifferent, and invisible forces. Living on lakes all my life, I've never had to contend with tides.
As usual, I've taken some poetic license here. In particular -- and to defend the Turks and Caicos -- there was none of that fishy maritime smell. Not only is it a coral island with a relatively unproductive near-shore, but the steady trade-winds scour the air of anything unpleasant.
I like the idea of orders of magnitude that operate in parallel and never intersect. Here, it's on the axis of time: the geological scale of time and tide, in contrast with the human scale of life. I also like the telescoping in and out, from cosmos to microcosm: so the opening stanza has giant spheres circling in space, while in the closing one the aperture narrows and the focal length shortens as the reader's eye is brought down to earth and back to the beach. My favourite poetry is mostly about microcosm: the close observation of small daily detail. So this is a fitting way to end.
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