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The Poetry Show: Safe Harbors
Enlighten Radio Presents
Unexpected Poetics -- Seeking, and Finding Safe Harbor
Poets Dinah Hawken, Tracy K Smith, Ralph Williams, Don Hynes visit the peace of harbors.
This poem by David Gregory, Reading the Bar/Whakatane Harbour, like the sea, does not encourage adjectives.
Reading the Bar
Whakatane Harbour
Such a liquid language
lisping between the headlands
with a slight disturbance of syntax
over the rocks, fresh and salt;
the river knuckling under.
Read the slurred waves.
Air as braille
against the skin, hair;
always more episodes of driftwood.
An interrogation of gulls
demand their living
off the backs of water.
The sea is not
contained by adjectives
– sullen, playful, unforgiving –
the insult of ignorance
has a sure response.
A woman stands alone
literate in grief.
David Gregory
Based on a True Story, Sudden Valley Press, 2024
Our Blog Our Player Our Podcasts
questions, comments: [email protected]
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By John CaseEnlighten Radio Presents
Unexpected Poetics -- Seeking, and Finding Safe Harbor
Poets Dinah Hawken, Tracy K Smith, Ralph Williams, Don Hynes visit the peace of harbors.
This poem by David Gregory, Reading the Bar/Whakatane Harbour, like the sea, does not encourage adjectives.
Reading the Bar
Whakatane Harbour
Such a liquid language
lisping between the headlands
with a slight disturbance of syntax
over the rocks, fresh and salt;
the river knuckling under.
Read the slurred waves.
Air as braille
against the skin, hair;
always more episodes of driftwood.
An interrogation of gulls
demand their living
off the backs of water.
The sea is not
contained by adjectives
– sullen, playful, unforgiving –
the insult of ignorance
has a sure response.
A woman stands alone
literate in grief.
David Gregory
Based on a True Story, Sudden Valley Press, 2024
Our Blog Our Player Our Podcasts
questions, comments: [email protected]