Eel-Grass Sears Island
Hard to be lonely
in the lushness of
eel-grass, feeling the ocean’s
ebb and flow —
hard to know
want or hurt or
waste, here below
the sun, the sky,
the water’s edge of
grass and mud and
moving with the moon
hard to know
the hearts of men, those
who would fill and spill and
kill all below
their own shallow depth of heart, their
line of sight —
hard to know these hearts,
hard to be alive,
hard to survive
in the face of their
rush toward riches,
toward death,
hard to be alive.
Published first as “The Voice of Eel-Grass” in Rewilding.org
Journal Note
bowing to this moment
to this particular moment
this moment of
sunlight, grasses, ferns
birch, salt water,
chestnut sided warbler –
bow to the
horizon, hello
clouds, hello
ocean
every moment
bowing
Poet Gary Lawless is co-owner of Gulf of Maine Books in Brunswick, and editor/publisher of Blackberry Books. His latest book of poems, How the Stones Came to Venice, was recently published by Littoral Books, of Portland, Maine. It will also be published in Italy, in Italian, and in Brazil, in Portuguese. He recently edited and published Nanao Sakaki’s collected poems How to live on the planet earth as well as several other titles by and about Nanao.
Gary was born in Belfast and lives in Nobleboro with his wife Beth Leonard, their cat, and their two rescue donkeys.