Nautical Charts

I should probably type an introduction here, but I am not sure how to go about that without rambling on and on, essentially forever. If you need any clarification on anything please ask me. Also I am not sure whether this is in the right section, I was debating this or the Lyric section, so mods feel free to move it. Written for my grandparents, based on true events and places. My first try at true autobiographical poetry. Note: sergeant majors are a type of fish.

All comments, suggestions, crits welcome. Ciao. CL.

Nautical Charts
(for Bob and Raye Lenson – Grammy and Patoo)

I wish I could write about the islands:
how the waters obscure the multi-coloured
reefs below, like him; (I don’t pretend I can.)
and I don’t try to make out more than
diver depths at the Wreck of the Rhone,
chasing greenback turtles and sergeant majors.

up here the patches of beryl and cobalt stand out like
a grandmother’s worn quilt, so many memories in each
blue grotto stitch, a lifetime of them in birthdays and breaks.

there are so many stories of this place, in this place,
that I’ve folded between rib bones and heart muscle.
histories of sea-planes and hot buttered rum, of race week and
inlet hoping, halcyon hues and the turtle dove, welcoming you home.

I’ve been to Lone Palm and the Virgin; I’ve felt the fine shell sand
between my toes. Norman’s caves, just like for Ben Gunn, enveloped me in
swash-and-buckle pirate mystery, the thrill still runs through my veins.

I’ve sailed the bight on a breach
with Drake and the Golden Hind,
laughing at it all my way at a roundtable
in Bellamy Cay.

I learned to skipper the dinghy with
words like ‘greenie’ and ‘ten story building’
- island terms, island words.

I miss the taste, the smell, of roti in Road Town,
and they way they drive too fast.

Dolphins danced their water waltz near little
Van Dyke, and I fished bright magenta golf balls
from under the eye of the great barracuda.

I know that you let loose 30 extra feet of
cable to drag on the bed. The required amount
will make you cast about for hours, like some poor
fools (quality entertainment.)

I’ve slept in a birth, and opened a hatch to welcome
a newling day and the ice boat. I can calculate from
rpms and feet (fathoms and knots are in my blood.),
and back again, even pitch the bimini. I can furl
a jib or mains’l, and crank the winch on a upwind tack.

The melt of a cheeseburger in paradise and curly fries
only the Jolly Roger can serve are ghost memories on
my pliant tongue.

My mind is a slideshow of coral: elkhorn and brain,
and the lively crescendo of a steel drum band. Laughing
gulls echoing challenges from mast-tops, and the pink brilliance
of catching live conch in the eel grass.

(the moorings.)

We are winging it down the channel, mottled spinnaker
juxtaposed against the jib and main, a smooth arc in the sky.
There are placement maps to remind me of where I’ve been,
covering the wall. Souvenir shirts from Pusser’s landing and
Smuggler’s Cove.

And I sing changes in latitudes, change in attitudes,
just like Jimmy did.