HOMESICK DITTY

 

 

 

Welded to the hot South by duty, looking

            old among cheap chinoiserie,

                        when will I see

            steep streets leaning to the sea,

white town stepping down to quay, to dark

            harbor water, verdigris

                        where brushed by art

of Northern light, pale, pellucid, cool and tart?

 

The sign of the fish long bartered for rapport

            with poisoners, my hoard of prix

pointless as life sinks on a lifeless shore,

                        when may I leave

            this still, tideless inland sea

that lifts its dirty mirror to a ravaged

            sky, these deadly tenebrae,

                        when read the message,

find the strait way and take the passage?

 

On the rim where eskers of the West give out

            to drumlins marching to the sea,

tried by fire, by ice tempered, now

                        true North is East.

            The sea speeds the subarctic toward me;

swell skips past, flinging flowers, casts

            showers of foamy roses; see

                        how the whales dance,

the seals laugh, the birds shout, my soul cheers before the mast.