Doris' Daughter

The sea was this inhospitable mate all night,

a surly concoct of loose winds, rain, heavy

black rollers tromping up and down the coast,

all along our well-bred eiderdown dunes.

 

Having fortified the hatches, laid in

enough devil’s courage to see me through

the shellack of an incensed nor’easter,

I was prepared to ride out the worst

 

of whatever she intended to toss my way

between the familiar covers of another

old man’s regrets for having looked too dearly

into the seven-tenths mirror of a wayward jack.

 

At dawn, having exhausted the balance

of my poorly remembered prayers,

I joined the browbeaten congregation  

of neighbors tasked to tidying up

 

the bruised ships strewn about the wrecked remains

of our once idyllic harbor. Where, I wondered,

would I find a salvageable shake, sufficient rations

of shingles to get us through the coming winter?

 

Looking up into the rejuvenated sun  

I saw this circling erne dip its wing

in commiseration, a recognition towards

my pitiful plight -- heard the faintest stir

 

of wind whispering to the harsh truth  

about love -- ‘we mate for life.’ For better

or worse, through bad times and squalls,    

no matter how bitter the teacup’s tempest,

 

these hills are the hills we harnessed,

drew water to seed a life’s acre --

where we’ll lie and lay long after

the dust of this tempestuous sea has settled. 

Ken e Bujold

Reviews

[emmajoygreen]

Start to finish you have presented. created, a series of happenings like an exessive delight in where you are, what you have discovered! ' heavy black rollers tromping up and down the coast, all along our well-bred eiderdown dunes.' How wonderfully visual! Then, then - you continue, brows raised to, '‘we mate for life.’ For better or worse, through bad times and squalls, no matter how bitter the teacup’s tempest,' - that is true love without expectation, just.. take it how it is. Real.