Saturday, November 17, 2012

Ocean

Driving, late yesterday afternoon and into evening, sixty miles on I-5 in stop-and-go traffic. Rain and Friday, dark by 4pm. And then a turn to the west, towards saltwater, and a darker way to go, limited visibility for the next 80 miles, off-and-on rain, off-and-on wipers, the defroster turned to high. The radio cutting out. My quiet son beside me, his dry sense of humor.

This poem by Theodore Roethke kept flaring into my consciousness, this passage particularly:

from The Far Field

I dream of journeys repeatedly:
Of flying like a bat deep into a narrowing tunnel
Of driving alone, without luggage, out a long peninsula,
The road lined with snow-laden second growth,
A fine dry snow ticking the windshield,
Alternate snow and sleet, no on-coming traffic,
And no lights behind, in the blurred side-mirror,
The road changing from glazed tarface to a rubble of stone,
Ending at last in a hopeless sand-rut,
Where the car stalls,
Churning in a snowdrift
Until the headlights darken.  


---

Four hours later, we pulled up to this odd "intentional" community, Seabrook....















I hate to use the word quaint, but nothing else fits as well. Lil' suburb'o'the'beach.

Anyway.

What matters is that I'm here with my cancer-in-remission sister, another sister, and various spouses/nephews/girlfriends.

I do not intend to go clamming tonight at low tide (8-ish) with everyone else. A chair by the fire beckons, a glass of wine.

4 comments:

  1. it DOES look quaint. I like it.

    Gee, I cannot understand why you wouldn't want to venture onto a cold beach in the dark to dig up sea creatures. A chair by the fire and wine? Paltry comfort compared to the wind-swept beach. Snert.

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  2. Seabrook looks fun; I had a quick look at the bumf. Good to see a new development that all blends in at once.

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  3. You definitely have earned your chair and glass of wine by the fire, my dear.

    Enjoy yourself and your family -- you are so busy with work that this must be a wonderful oasis for the moment.

    Love, C.

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  4. I found your blog through Tuesday Poem after reading the one you posted by Holly Hughes.

    I've from WA State but live in Burma/Myanmar. Reading this post, I could immediately relate to nights driving like this. Windy, dark roads to the coast. Always lots of weather. :)

    ...thank you for posting this. Though feeling rather homesick now, I am also grateful to feel some sort of connection to WA...through this crazy internet...via poetry. (Miracles.)

    Thank you!

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