I was looking at Poetry Daily and really liked
this poem. It just made me want
to be near the ocean.
Graceline
I still see the wake of our ship,
or the route our ship took
combed evenly across the ocean.
It makes graceful lines
that have a way of lasting:
so spontaneous and definite
I could start our journey all over again
and live in the present.
In his painting of the sea,
that comb—a few teeth missing—
scraped away the recent white
and oatmeal oils
to show at last the older blues and blacks:
this makes a restless
pattern over the sea
the way a ship performs just this task, with fidelity,
to scratch what is already there
with a little incident, remark, anecdote—
a grazed knee, a few shouts in a port,
so for the passengers on deck,
the ocean becomes theirs,
dense and dependable, even homely.
They leave what can never be left.
The ship creates the illusion of a path—
a past that issues from it and winds
over the ocean and is unforgettable,
and the ocean is unforgettable.
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