a pastel by Ethel Mortenson Davis
Tag Archives: waves
The Shore that No Man Sees
Thomas Davis
I sit upon the rocky lakeshore, waves
Long, curving lines that sweep and sing their music
Into the rhythms of my thoughts, their cryptic,
Moon-driven spirit a metaphor that graves
Itself into the thought that strikes me, raves
Unchecked into a day so wind-blown, gray,
It makes me wonder why the disarray
I feel inside seems dark, a chasmal cave.
Then, suddenly, I see the waves as souls
That sweep into a shore that no man sees,
And as they chant into the beach, the shoals
Of rocks become a shore of certainties,
An incantation on the shore, their canticle
Eternity, immersion mystical.
Filed under poems, Poetry, Thomas Davis, Uncategorized
Lake Michigan Ice and Shore
photographs by Ethel Mortenson Davis
Filed under Ethel Mortenson Davis, Photography
Still Winter, Cave Point
Photographs by Ethel Mortenson Davis
Filed under Ethel Mortenson Davis, Photography
Waves
a pastel by Ethel Mortenson Davis
Filed under Art, Art by Ethel Mortenson Davis, Ethel Mortenson Davis
Encounter With A Gray Morph Owl
by Thomas Davis
He saw the gray morph owl, its yellow eyes
A spectre deep in darkness, as he climbed
The ridge where birch trees ghosted, bent as skies
Shrieked cold and lake waves slammed against black stones.
Its whitish face, curved bill, and pointed ears
Leapt out at him the moment that he seized
The steep-slope sapling. Senseless, ancient fears
Gasped through his veins and, beating, spiked his heart.
Inside its cedar trunk, the owl, three times,
Sang, startled at his human face, and spread
Its wings as if it had the strength to climb
Past dread into a hunter’s surety.
He wondered at the madness that had forced
Him out into the storm, his restlessness
So powerful it stirred his sleep and coursed
Through legs that moved him out the door.
Ghost feathers touched his face and spooked the song
Wrung from the owl into his blood as whiteness
Whipped wildly out of sight in wind along
The ridge’s denseness edged against the sky.
He stood, knee deep in snow, the slope so steep
He hardly had the strength to stay upright
And longed to feel the warmth of lovely sleep
Out of the bitter cold beneath the snow.
The roaring waves, the wildness of the night,
Knifed down past flesh to marrow in his bones.
He turned and trudged toward the kitchen light
That meant a fire and shelter from the storm.
Back home, beside the fireplace, darkness seared
Into his thoughts, he took his pocketknife
And started whittling the way an owl’s eyes sheered
The wildness from the spirit of a man.
Filed under Poetry, Thomas Davis
Lake Michigan as the Sun Goes Down
a photograph by Sonja Bingen, our daughter
Filed under Art, Photography
The Waters
a love poem by Thomas Davis
The waters have come clear to my soul.
I have sunk into the abyss of deep waters.
Like the currants clustered upon the vines
I have taken nourishment from the leaves
and roots of the earth.
Song O song of my love into the deepest night,
eyes dark like pebbles on the bottom of the sea,
Can you not hear the waves running like elephants,
gray and huge, as they crash on the rocks of the shore?
The waters have come clear to the soul.
I have sunk into the abyss of deep waters.
Like the currants clustered upon the vines
I have taken my nourishment from the leaves
and roots of the earth.
Filed under Poetry, Thomas Davis
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