Coats and faces tight against the wind,
only line in the winter empty plaza,
on the kiosk windows, yellowed and edges curled
all the winning numbers sold
el Gordo, Navidad, el Nino, La Loteria
I ‘magin you know it well as me, the rush,
calling shotgun long-sida luck,
always a clamor, claiming credit when things go
the way we hoped they might,
but the crowd thins like smoke in the wind
when fate shifts, and tables turn.
Luck’s a tide.
No dam’ll hold it when it flows. …
Summer heat is all we talk about for a while but it is gone so quickly. School starts, the first rains fall, leaves turn. Suddenly the warm is something we lean into instead of pulling away from. The heat of summer lives on the bright colors of jams and sauces. I have bags of roasted tomatoes, pesto, and raspberries in the freezer. Next weekend I’ll harvest the winter squash and have containers of bright orange and gold mash for cream soups and stacks of butternut squash for roasting. But this weekend I packed summer heat in jars. Literally. …
Carefree summer,
measured by sunset drinks,
paperback novels,
laundry on the line and picnics on the shore.
“Isn’t Russel such dear, laughed Aunt Harriet,
“Always worried about the weather.
My glass is empty, won’t you have another.”
“My bones ache,” Old Rut grumbled,
squinting to the sou’east,
summer had darkened and fall crept close,
The few boats left in the Pool rolled in the swell making with the tide.
“I knew soon as I got up, I’d have to shift her to the mooring inside.
Goddam wind, blow one way and turn around and blow the other.”
Still morning, not…
In the morning,
stars still bright,
I open the doors to let the cool air in,
and let my dreams flow out.
There was a time, a yesterday,
we gathered sticks,
made a town among the trees in the park,
dug out out lakes,
crafted boats of bark with leaves for sails,
scratched out canals and set them out upon voyages of discovery.
Simple dreams, built so easily
until afternoon shadows called us home.
Today it seems so much more than long ago
Once you wake, there’s no going back.
I woke early today
leaving dreams to see the comet,
I thought how 6,000…
So many times, I waited on the wharf.
for tide or wind to shift.
Lying back on sun-bleached planks,
halyards on the flagpole tapping
like a metronome left to mark the beat
long after the orchestra has packed and gone.
Later, crossing the bay,
looking to see my wake
a long wave curling behind,
ahead the the low grey rise of the island.
I thought of how arrival was not so much a gathering,
more a scattering.
Pieces left or lost,
at every stop along the way. …
benjamin weinberg
Writer, walker, poet, educator. Commercial fisherman, builder, donut maker, organic grower. Boston, U. City, Maine, South Africa, Madrid.
