The bronze face stares
Out, beyond breakwater’s edge,
Yellow moon rising..

Squawking roof ridge  gulls
Gossiping, suddenly rise,
White-black globs falling

Bronze hands hold the wheel
Tight against the bashing sea
Heavy rain forecast.

Wildly tumbling gulls
Diving  behind a trawler,
Pierless occupation.

Lost fishermen’s names
One hundred on George’s Bank
Record Catch report.

Where pink beach roses
Edge rocks, furious seas break,
Gabbianos peck.

Children anxious,
Have all the boats returned?
Widow’s walk crowded,

San Pietro coming
Held high by six owners, wobbling,
Sinking memories.

The swift sweeping tide
Rushing past Annisquam Light,
Madly tacking, pushed back..

Ferrini moon danced
Olson delivered mail
Thunderous acclaim.

Babson’s tales in Maximus
Olson’s great poem,
Rants in the G D News.

Only lobsters now
Great cod landings a memory,
Avaricious failure.

Smiles passing by on main street
Fresh bread, Sicilia’s,
Fog lifts slowly in the morning.

Soaring  high hunter,
Quick, red tail searching Dogtown.
Silent lobsters crawl.

Sea waves never stop
For famous Cape Ann’s Artists,
Loving the beauty.

Great granite ledges
Quarried deep swimming pools,
Delicate Heron.

Kent Bowker 5/24/2016

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.