Blue Voyage III
heads of stone face the waves that rush / clapping against the body of the island
shallow lip of white / against the rising of earth / flowering in sharp green trunks of life
parabolic line of erosion / eruption etched into the rock / crags smoothed and jutting
upright before the deep blue / warm under a thundercloud / full-sail drifting
like a slow oncoming storm towards a nameless place, where people and gulls pass
wondering, staring, waiting as the land fades into sea and the sea into sky / all-beginning
forests drink up the alchemies of water and air / from the root of the wide Aegean shore
speaking of life in color / the palate of textures rough and dry under unforgiving sunlight
falling over spectrums of earth where the blue sea becomes green shore / whitened
crests lapping at the feet of dark brown stone / the few and far secluded beaches
until the stone of the nude island mount is shown / white rising in points and crumbling
the soil where trees grow softens under floorings / tufts of immaculate greenery
low atop its height / cut against the lightest blue / wisps of off-white clouds beyond
seen behind sail masts stretching out in the slight breeze / momentums to parallel coasts
waving from water to stone to air / eye level / the boat and a forest / above the sail
toward the sky / the land moves up for a tree / seeds flown in by the migrating birds
it descends with the erosion of roots / weather returning / from light to the deep
from blue to blue / the earth around plunges like an island submerged by silence
stilled to the following of the few who laugh and sing / read and see
listening for the ways of the land between sea and sky / feeling for the depths and heights
of blue, sea to sky / wandering without a hint of a map / not asking where or why
lost between blues and floating over the sea, by air / and on through the moveable forests
Blue Voyage IV
an island of earth indistinguishable from the continental drift / split by slow sea currents
turquoise shallows / translucent blues shimmering / sparkled glints
glimmering
light stardust touching over the seascapes churning / swelling / the peopled coast
backdrop of heights / cliffs of textured mountain stone / bold mineral
pigments
diagonal swirls of rock vertical latitudes of visible Eurasian plates / opposing itself
mega-rifts of warring earth clashing like the gods of our primal arboreal
fears
among the trees we built on stone / to pray / that they notice us in their
power
mightier we made them into symbols / for all that is seen / by an eye / hand or breath
on either side of the watery course that makes inlets / coves and bays shine
with our earthly greed the dark wet stone dies against weather-beaten walls
made by the involuntary exhales of Poseidon / blue god of the West
rushing into the coastal rock like the moving sea / the verdant greens
lone trees sprout to welcome worshippers of contemporary re-creation
us who sacrifice ourselves to the bodies of fish and vegetables
water itself on altars of wood cut and finished / floating and bobbing / over beatific depths
coastline to mainland / tall trunks thin / stand alone behind a beach of washed red sand
leafy tops adorning the horizon / where the mountains of Anatolia spring to
life
along the Aegean high / of orchards and vineyards / olives and grapes
dotted brown earth surrounded / forests to the tree line / trampled by
footsteps of Asia
down over Europe, fumbling / only to reach the seaside shade / taste fruits
of the West
play in the shadows of the white-winged gulls / the black crows who steer
through the air from shore to shore / focusing through into the clear coastal seas
lucid dreaming to the bottom / all for a starfish / an eel / a weed / a
sponge