LIFE IS A BEACH – DRIFTWOOD
July 28th – You’ve taken one last stroll along the shore either by yourself or holding the hand of your significant one (spouse, partner, friend, child…). You come across an interesting piece of driftwood. It looks like… Tell us about your souvenir in detail.
***
KEEPING UP WITH THE WAVES
July 25 – Collecting Seashells
A BIRD IN THE WOOD
I spied driftwood with knots that could
have been two eyes, placed as close
as they were. Under their gaze, I chose
to carve myself a great grey owl.
I set to work with knife and awl;
the shape prepared to spring. It rose
from the grain to strike a piercing pose,
the eyes glaring, freed at last from the wood.
copyright 2013, William Preston
Oh, Gorgeous!!
Thank you.
wise old eyes in driftwood. love this, Bill.
I appreciate that. Thanks.
Pretty picture.
Oh! Did you really do this? You make me want to carve driftwood…and owls are a favorite of mine.
Sorry ti say, I didn’t. I friend did, though, and he was from Maine.
Oh, maybe someday we both will then…neat that your friend did and I like the coincidence in the home state!
Youneverknow. Meanwhile, I think I’d better get my glasses to see what I’m really typing. Shouldda taken that class seriously.
Youneverdoknow! 😉 I have those easy typo streeeaaks too, sometimes glasses or no!
DRIFTWOOD
Smooth and rounded by time at sea,
the shore was littered with beach debris;
the waves had pounded at scraps of wood
to rend them battered and bruised but good
for adding, gracefully, shape and form
to dress the porches beyond the norm
one sees in shacks perched along the shore.
Some places there are now homes once more.
I wonder. Perhaps there is hope for me,
a vagabond, something like beach debris
yet smoothed and rounded by a life at sea.
copyright 2013, William Preston
I love the “battered and bruised but good”ness of this whole piece, with the hopeful ending. Beautifully done.
Yes, what I Loved too!!
Living driftwood…I adore that idea. 🙂
WHILST WALKING THE BEACH,
I spy
a walking-stick:
perfect, fully polished
and compleat, yet essentially
debris.
copyright 2013, William Preston
So true…such perfection in nature’s polishing. Beautiful image.
A Piece of Driftwood
What’s left behind a long and stormy night?
Your life! You’ve weathered all it had to give.
You, old beach relic, tell of such a plight
that, as a fond reminder, through it lived.
I’ll take you home with me; far from this sea.
We’ll rock upon my porch and dream of days
when we were straight and tall; and running free:
no blisters gnarling at bent bones or ways.
Your tone is bleached and white, this much I know
and there’s uncanny smoothness to your touch.
The wind and rain has made you victim; slow.
It takes a while when nature teaches much.
I’ll keep you, bit of soul from off that beach.
A heart’s companion; still it likes to teach.
Such a tender poem.
“It takes a while when nature teaches much.” This is a sweet wise poem. Thanks.
Yes, I Love this so much!!
Truths beautifully told.
Teacher indeed. Love this, Jackie.
Gee, thanks all you guys for such kind responses.
Driftwood
D ark knotted log
R etrieved from the beach
I nteresting
F ormation
T ake it home
W ork magic with flowers
O n top, perhaps
O rnamented with knick-knack matching
D ecor. Priceless souvenir.
I enjoyed this, especially your use of “priceless.”
Take it home and work magic. Yes, indeed.
Such beauty in nature. 🙂
DRIFTWOOD, AS IN OTIS P.
Groucho walked to many names.
He’d sneer at priests and leer at dames:
as Wagstaff he was lean and mean,
and once told Roth to wax the dean;
and at the circus he could be shady
yet sang of Lydia, the Tattooed Lady;
and at the track he gave a push
to a jumping horse, as Hackenbush;
as Spaulding he was quite the louse,
destroying Mrs. Rittenhouse;
his Hammer bilked the Florida boom
by selling land that had no room;
in Freedonia, Rufus Firefly
made duck soup of Sylvania’s spy.
The opera was his epitome
for there, as Driftwood, he could be
the party of the first part, who
was full of puff and swagger too
but yet, in the right frame of mind,
could even be a trifle kind.
In all these parts his essence shone,
for Groucho was Groucho, one alone.
This tribute is almost as much fun as Groucho himself. Kudoes!
Thanks. It struck me funny that I was putting a bit of order on a comedian whose acts was, essentially, anarchic.
This creates in me the urge to watch some Groucho! This is an excellent tribute!!
Beholder
Somewhere waves have twisted trees from shore
or battered boats have broken up, unmoored.
Perhaps developers bull-dozed root clumps
and limbs while clearing land for swimming pools
and homes that may themselves take to the sea
when hurricanes and tides muscle them loose
and let the waves pull them into the deep,
to change their forms, hollow and sand them clean.
I knew a sculptor once who found big roots
of trees he’d give to sea, like cultured pearls.
He said real drift was harder now to find.
He chained them to the rocks and let the waves
‘perfect’ them for a while, a year or so.
Then he would smile and run his hands along
the wood stripped clean as any skeleton,
disfigured from itself, tangled and scarred,
but there was tortured beauty in the wood.
He every morning walked the beach to search,
especially after great winds and storms,
collecting driftwood for his sculpting work.
He said he sees tree spirits trapped inside
that he can free like some strange wizardry,
then sell, of course, to tourists on the shore
who fancy wooden pelicans or fish
or ships or mermaids clinging to a rock.
He uses chips for tourist fare, he says,
like breaking prison bars to free a man.
I’ve known him work a piece for many months
and one day see a face blink from the wood.
That one huge piece up on the block has been
there in his shop for years for him to smooth,
but he can’t see the prisoner inside,
although he squints and growls, pacing about.
I say, maybe a tiger’s in that drift.
We stand and look and pace this way and that,
but we don’t see what it would like to be.
He needed time, I reckon, to see plain
that he was searching for something not there,
desiring drift to be something it’s not—
a hand, a face, a bird aloft in flight—
a thing he could exert his will upon.
“That drift is just exactly what it is,”
he said, starting to clean away debris,
“to make me see acceptance is the key.
No need to change a thing, just let it be
a monument to great trees gone to sea.”
He let me buy him breakfast, celebrate
his having learned a lesson hard to bear,
to take folks as we find them, scarred, adrift,
and look at formless beauty as a gift.
Awesome!
YES!! That last stanza sealed it!!!
For me, this is another one of your stories that rises like a symphony orchestra to a stirring and then settling conclusion. I especially love the sound and sense of the line, “a monument to great trees gone to sea.” Many thanks for creating this, Jane.
Well said.
Oh my…Jane…this is such a piece of art. Your ending is powerful and tear provoking. Thank you for this. ♥
Thanks so much, friends. I was in the moment and it got a bit longer than I’d planned. Do you think poems are like driftwood we want to manage?
… now that you mention it… yesss…
This is beauty
a double shadorma?
Spent
Bare buffed wood
transformed by drowning
sanded by
waves, bleached by
brine and sun, battered in storms
drift, dropped on a beach.
So are we
swept away by time
bereft of
vanity
smoothed by perils, scarred, lightened
to beautiful bones.
Wow…
Whoosh!!! The lead in and those last lines are such perfection.
Indeed they are. In fact, just those lines alone are a poem, I think. Superb stuff.
Thanks for the comments, all. I hadn’t noticed those two lines’ compatibility until you mentioned it. Thanks.
Rounded and weathered,
as light as a heart in love.
Driftwood on the shore.
Lovely haiku!!!
That middle line…. it lifts with a lilt. Wonderful little gem.
ditto. love that line too.
yes
🙂
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A Bone to Pick
~
Sun-bleached ribs protrude
as if the beach were a creature
with breath abandoned
turning into the very dust it’s made from.
Returning to earth…
how restful this seems
each aching emotion gone
giving over guilt
harbored burdens,
(they don’t belong to her),
yes, she’d hand those over too;
she’d allow the great-
all knowing beast of sea to sip them in.
Now, ivory white bones will float in foam
and wood will drift there for a while;
it’s certain that worries will hesitate
resisting the tide
before being pulled out to ocean,
at long last, leaving her be.
Finally freed of mind,
despairs will be distant memories.
As she embodies breathless beauty
coast of woe begins to decompose.
You see, she’s reconstructing her shore-
counting her blessings
grain for grain,
pebble for pebble
and stone for stone,
she’s placing those foundational boulders
back where they belong.
Faith in action.
Faith she can’t see.
Still,
F A I T H.
~
Copyright © Hannah Gosselin 2013
Breath-taking. For me, the core lies in “coast of woe begins to decompose.” The “o” sounds are link rolling waves.
Thank you so much…you picked up on, what for me, was/is the turning point, too. 🙂
Hannah, this is a gorgeous piece, visual and audial and moving. Wonderful.
Absolutely!!
Faith is the beginning of so much.
DRIFTWOOD
Who empowered you
to travel the blue,
to drift on from shore to shore
gathering some bits of lore
from each explored land
where you touched the sand?
Stories buried in your core.
Did the waves shape you
to glide o’er the blue,
a mini boat on you pinned
a tall sail to catch the wind,
two tails like rudders
move you like surfers
as waves and tide roll and bend.
Your body washed smooth
‘round each bump and grove.
Bleached by sun to a rich blond
as if touched by magic wand.
You could tell a lot
if you could but talk.
I’m sure you and I would bond.
Your poem, to me, is acting like a bonding agent already. Loved reading it.
Glad you enjoyed it. 🙂
Love the characterization that you give this driftwood and the idea of the stories at its core…great write, Marjory. 🙂
Thank You, Hannah, ..believe there are stories at the core of many things. 🙂
Sounds as if you already have bonded, Marjory. Lovely.
Probably, 🙂
…yes…
Excellence. Portrayed beautifully.
Thank You for the nice comment. 🙂
Driftwood Memory
By David De Jong
Upon the mantle lies a secluded log.
A fair arm’s length long, smooth, with dog legged ends.
Veins of grey, knots of black, with the feel of silk.
It is the trophy of an old memory.
A young boy on the shore of Superior.
Thirteen in years, wise in his own, selfish mind.
Stuck, vacationing with parents much too dull.
They stopped for lunch and dined on smoked fish and bread.
A savored treat, fresh from the shoreline smoke house,
Wrapped up still warm, with care, in yesterday’s news.
They walked the shoreline to see what could be found;
Stones for skipping on an endless bed of glass,
Driftwood pieces, perhaps from the other side.
One stood out in stature and fit the hand well,
Somewhat wet, as just released from its maker.
Mother, felt it required to take pictures.
Arrogance, distanced his stance from his father
A father, that saved lives in the holocaust,
Smuggling souls through the Netherlands country.
A father, that made a house home, bare handed,
Toiling after work, in the dark, brick by brick.
A father that was proud of his son despite
His son’s thoughts; he was better, smarter, wiser.
That piece of wood, lays dormant but ages on
Its ambience of grey and silver shows well.
Like the greys of regret in reflection’s view.
I know the boy, grown and aged past his father,
Would longingly return to that place and time,
Shed his ignorance, his arrogance, embrace
Love that was there, but he was too wise to see.
That small photo next to the wood reminds him;
Every moment in life is a gift, share it,
Use them all wisely, with grace and thanksgiving,
Lest that moment become driftwood on your shore,
Tossed by the storm, searching for the next wave, home
Well written, speaks truth.
Yes, very well done.
Oh… this hurts me… we all learn our lessons in our own sweet time…
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DRIFTWOOD
Driftwood triggers thoughts and feelings I can’t quite explain. Like a foggy dream that won’t come into focus; pieces of a puzzle I cannot connect. Memories of dad drift in and out of my mind – of us walking the shore…searching. He would toss chunk after chunk of wood back to the ground. Not quite right. Was I too young to ask the question? Or was I too young to understand the answer?
drifting along
exposed to the elements
shapes who we are
2013-07-28
P. Wanken
Well done – speaks of many things -many thoughts.
yes it does…
Ocean Sculpture
Like plant and animal life,
driftwood floats
out of ocean
on to sand,
twisted shapes of wood,
bleached bone white
under midday sun.
No whittling, carving, or polishing
needed for these works of art
sculpted by
Nature’s hand.
Produced by the hand of a Master Artist
I am blushing, Marjory. Thank you so much.
Marvelous!
Thanks, PS!
Gorgeous artwork!!
Isn’t driftwood a stunning thing to see?
Embarking Driftwood
Cast away as useless dreck
Lies at our feet a piece of driftwood
Far from home severed from reality
We admired at length it’s gracious orientation
Soaked in it’s spirited tones
Lapped in the lingering luster of it’s rings
Seducing our gaze into it’s well-accumulated wisdom
Gathered of many years
Perhaps many years at sea
We could only imagine it’s history
Of growth, turmoil, anguish and journey
We listened to it’s story and reflected on our own roots
IT seem each day there are new pieces id wood on the beach by our bay, I often wonder of their stories.
Last line… !!
Driftwood
Shaped and shaved
and saved by wave,
it floats. A boat by
Heaven’s own hand made,
it holds a heart
-shaped hollow place,
embraces Lake and bids
it stay.
Lovely.
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Yes, we do want to ‘manage’ the poem and the driftwood. The ‘truth’ in your piece. But, the more you manipulate the piece, sometimes, the farther you get from the truth. Your ‘story’ poem about such a topic AND done in blank verse so appeals to me. Totally enjoyable read!
This was in answer to Jane’s “Beholder” poem. Don’t know how it managed to get so out of line.
‘
Regrets of our youth
like driftwood coming ashore
beaten and battered.
(in response to David de Jong’s poem, “Driftwood Memory”
!! Captured!!
http://purplesplatitudes.wordpress.com/2013/07/30/driftwood/
I Love this!!
Playing catch up! 🙂
At the water’s edge –
wind and water have smoothed his feathers
and aged his weathered head…
an Eagle soars.
Caregiver
Just
a piece of wood,
Carried and crashed
Bobbing about
Trying to stay afloat.
I gather you up
into my arms
and take you
home.