The leaves are falling

The dense green wall of foliage slowly disappears

into yellows, oranges, mixed greens,

the growing bronze of towering oaks,

dots of scarlet here and there,

and in this thinning, vistas opening up:

more than we can,

for it is about us, of course in the long run

though we may not see it that way,

for the vistas opening here, always it seems

to the sea.

The sea that surrounds this island of Beau Port, Gloucester

or the sea tide that floods the marshes

our island sea

it’s sad for those who cannot open up

closeted in importance, or lost in drug fueled evasion

who can’t feel the ebb and flooding surges

of this sea in us and around us.

Kent Bowker
October 20, 2016

 

Kent Bowker started with poetry at Berkeley in the Fifties, then became a physicist working mainly in optics.  His new book of poems is Katharsis: Sifting Through a Mormon Past.  He lives in Essex, next to the Great Marshes and is treasurer of the Charles Olson Society.