Greetings from Manhattan. I was struck by your quietly beautiful photo, “Beachfront Sunrise,” (posted recently on Blogfinger), and your statement that you preferred sunrises to sunsets because “beginnings are happier than endings.”
Here is the poem, “Dawn,” from my 2008 collection, Father of Water.
Hi Paul,
Greetings from Manhattan. At this time of year, as temperatures warm along the coast, one can see sailboats being moved from winter storage on land to their berths at marinas. And as the wind picks up, one can hear their rigging striking the masts. Here is the poem “Tuning Forks,” from my 2008 collection, Father of Water.
Best wishes,
Charles Pierre
St. Thomas, USVI. Paul Goldfinger photo. Click once to enlarge.
Tuning Forks
By Charles Pierre:
It is past midnight, and the sailboats
float side by side at a sheltered marina,
in stillness so complete that not even
a lapping against the hulls can be heard.
Yet high above the water, at the tops
of the mastheads, the rigging of each craft
starts to ring aloud in a rising wind,
the ropes and cables striking the masts,
sounding possible routes to new lands.
The musical tones, in random clusters,
sailing out from the crowded harbor
toward an uncharted ocean of dark.
JESSICA MOLASKEY with Stephen Foster’s “Beautiful Dreamer.” From Jessica’s album Pentimento
Greetings from Manhattan. Over fifty years ago, my grandmother said a few things to me shortly before she died that I knew would eventually find their way into a poem. Here is “Grandmother’s Note” from my 2008 collection, Father of Water.
Ocean Grove. Paul Goldfinger photo. Click to enlarge.
"Direction:" A Poem by Charles Pierre.
A slow evening tide
pulls my vessel
seaward,
as I wait for night
to sail by stars
solo,
beyond harbor light
and the farthest
buoy.
From the author’s 2014 collection Coastal Moments, Hayland Press, New York.
Greetings from Manhattan. In the northeast, late November weather can be hard on holiday travelers — but offers opportunities to a poet. Here is “Revision,” a poem from my manuscript-in-progress, Circle of Time.
On this mild morning in late November, I sit writing near a small country spring, where busy sparrows and squirrels sip from the trickle amid grasses and ferns, while falling leaves catch in the branches of a few bushes or stick to wet rocks and clumps of dirt in the surrounding pool. But by ten, clouds drift in from the north to erase the mellow sunlight, as nature
reworks the composition around the spring with strong winds and a deepening chill: the grasses and ferns, leaves and bushes raked by gusts; the sparrows and squirrels fled to shelter in nearby woods; the trickle of water blown as spray from the rocks and dirt of the drying pool; and even I, notepad and pen slipped into my pocket, gone home to write about autumn’s nip.
Greetings from Manhattan. It is surprising how far you can travel, just by sitting quietly at home in a favorite room, surrounded by familiar objects. Here is the poem, “A Room in New York,” from my 2008 collection, Father of Water.
Best wishes, Charles Pierre
A Room in New York
As I sit at my desk, the morning sun begins
to fill this room with slow-moving planes
and angles of light. They glitter my windows
with Atlantic waters and whiten the shades
with New England snow, brightening
my blue sofa to a field of wild asters
in Nova Scotia, and my varnished table
to a forest of yellow pines in the Carolinas.
Rays skim the spines of a thousand books,
where peaks of an Alpine mountain range
shimmer on my shelves. When beams reach
my oriental rugs, the colors of Central Asia
shine up at me. As I write, city and wilderness
move in unison with the sun’s slow passage
through this room: each flame-suffused image,
each act of attention to the way light works,
leading outward to a world beyond walls.
Greetings from Manhattan. In almost every town and city of the country, one can see a Civil War monument, usually with a lone soldier in uniform at the top, his rifle by his side. Now, one hundred and fifty years after the end of that war, many of these statues show signs of deterioration from long exposure to the elements. Here, for Memorial Day, is the poem “Statue in the Park,” from my 2008 collection, Father of Water.
Best wishes,
Charles Pierre
Gen. G. K. Warren, Union Army. Standing on Little Round Top at Gettysburg National Park. Official Park photo.
