near the waterline, someone’s hammering
throughout the day, someone’s always
hammering

a staccato telegraph
of winter’s approach or gratitude
so little demands repair
or just some old goat’s survived

though when the hammering ceases
he may be eating a sandwich
or sawing a board to be hammered
yes, two taps secure its position

in the quiet, he’s
gone off to the supply house
for a another box of nails, another size
a door slams from another direction
where new hammering erupts

before the man puts his hammer down
on a leather tool belt
and then orders a beer

you’ll find boxes of hammering
in the tool shed, brown paper bags
of hammering in the mud room
old jars of hammering
on his truck bed

open any one
and his arm and shoulder
begin moving
the whole world as his anvil

Poem copyright 2016 by Jnana Hodson
To see the full set of seacoast poems, click here.

1

what if the tide never turns
but waits to be submerged
in the next high tide
one after another until
the whole city is inundated?

sailboats would go under
on their moorings, perhaps still
rocking mostly one side
from perpendicular

the wharf and its autos
would mean nothing
while the moon ignores her orbit

2

masts sway
like speedometers

or gauges
missing their dials

3

a whirlpool, however large or compact
swirls within myriad currents
that knit the harbor

some talk of changing public opinion
or the incumbent party
but don’t reckon the vortex
swimmers approach
laughing to each other

any remorse
over their drowning
will ring hollow

3

while ducktrap is a fish
a store touts its Ducktrap Decoy

whether for some waterfowl or the fish
lingers in question

awaiting a retort
from Daffy, Donald, or Daisy

as for the fish? only silent
disdain

Poem copyright 2016 by Jnana Hodson
To see the full set of seacoast poems, click here.

1

180-degree
sweep of ocean
seen from a cliff

great slow curve
of our planet

eight vessels
are barely
specks on this expanse

two seals so close
Rachel observes their features

“here I am”
the great breaking surf

2

toddler tracks
bird tracks
out for the show

car tires
looping over bicycle
beside shoe
gull, dog, and mouse
imprints in sand
leaving the parking lot

everybody’s
been to the beach

parasailing / surfing
weekend

3

Juan skirts New England
slams New Brunswick as a tropical storm

a danger of frost on Thursday
or we may be spared

by our proximity to the sea

4

moonlight

couples
entwined
on sand

man, we’re getting older, America
still ill-at-ease in this dwelling

Poem copyright 2016 by Jnana Hodson
To see the full set of seacoast poems, click here.

1

to speak of romance and sinking
hand-in-hand couples
approach
as a candlelight dinner
more than tragedy

the golden love I viewed as a lighthouse
my lighthouse
one of two back in Ohio, Ashtabula
marking
my own shipwreck, as well

in another history, Capt. Heman Smith
(He-Man), of Colonial Eastham
established a fire akin to a spire
(the latter, perchance with a clock
or weathervane)

marking time, the years

Chatham Light
2 white flashes
every 10 seconds

(2 bulbs revolving close together
followed by long silence)

originally from twin tower
steel shell with brick interior

2

which way the wind now?
the lifeline, the hymn
“Pilot me!”

3

aloof temples
to sails and rigging
extreme discomfort, sacrifice

in the dangerous occupation
to be murdered within sight of shore
once the storm broke

not just rock and water
but wind, especially
unpredictable, these potential

remote ruins of antiquity
American abbeys
at the confluence, hence

the fire in its crown, its eye
resolutely
facing up to uncertainty

4

one night, entranced by movement
in three rectangles of soft light
in the keeper’s house, considering
the occasional guest on the island
maybe a window with a wafting curtain
or secretive figure moving to the side

daylight revealing
only a pole with Old Glory
in front
of those three panels

more than the custom house
or harbormaster
this reminder of deception

nobody sees far into the water
and often little of what’s upon it

trade and fishing, mostly
occasional cruise castle or
the warship or well-known pirate

(death lurking below
in the rocks,
in the clouds and fog)

say what you will of radar, sonar
and satellite positioning
but life, love, and politics
remain fragile

Poem copyright 2016 by Jnana Hodson
To see the full set of seacoast poems, click here.

1

between sunset and sunrise
the ocean returns to desolate obsidian

of her dark depths
in the character

at best, stars above
strand of shoreline, depending

maybe the moon
with her sea-legs

or repeated slapping

2

breakers arrive as a single point of reflected white
opening out evenly in a line on either side

a lip, sometimes to one side only
rarely claiming, “I love you”

sheets of gleaming water shift on the sand
or everything way out, obscured
in fog

scolding
pipers scurry about
on their stilt-legs

at highest tide, pebbles sound of boiling

with all the sunburned drunks long asleep
or the party, behind glass or on the deck
a cigarette meanders somewhere to my left
though I catch no shards of conversation

3

if only the beach were not broken
by rocky fingers and cliffs

unseen ledges and outcroppings

or overwhelmed in abrupt tempests

the night voyageur might sail dependably
by the compass

but vessels and their crews
mostly go down along coastline
blindly

mistranslating, the whole sense stymied
by a single word, a puzzle, upturned wind

4

count the seconds, then, in the flashing
points
matched to the chart

one red-lighted buoy
white caps below

Whaleback just clearing the hilltop

a large, well-lighted ship near the Shoals
waiting for high tide to enter Portsmouth

or on a very clear night, way off
Thacher Island, Cape Ann, Gloucester

how is it the Boon flare jumps about
three spots, playing the length of shrouded rock island?

of the available beacons
the closest, curiously, appears only a muffle

in the call of the underside
“come to me”

mournful bell or horn
and strobe light

restless, relentless
rhythm, however unpredictable
retreats, advances
restores, destroys
cleanses

5

I cannot imagine rowing ten miles to an island
at midnight

after an evening in town

but they did
for a drink or conversation
so they said

Poem copyright 2016 by Jnana Hodson
To see the full set of seacoast poems, click here.

1

slowly approaching a line
that grows from the edge of the sea
and then spreads at the harbor mouth

slowly, details emerge
and at last, some recognition
in what’s become familiar

home, or at least neighborhood
extending

attuned here, more than elsewhere

the awareness, something all your own
has happened with this place
but not knowing precisely when

in the tide
returning

2

introductions, by degrees
lapping and receding

even in six hours

Plum Island with Eric, Bill
and the baby, “Why don’t we leave our towels
down there?” rather than the crest of the dune

“you’ll see”
once the surf bubbled inches
from our possessions

or high tide covering the jetty
that shaded the sailboat venturing out

or entering a ferry on one deck
and exiting
on the return, from another

or weather

on a carefully selected
Sunday picnic, and air
optimal for swimming at the sandbar
only to have the Coast Guard
pull up in an inflatable raft with a bullhorn
“Out of the water! A storm’s coming!”
while the sky’s still cloudless but
before we reach shelter two hundred
feet away, the sun’s gone and a deluge opens

with or without hail

or the mid-afternoon ferry
through twenty-foot swells
and returning at sunset
on calm water

not that we’re friends
or have much of what you’d call
a relationship

3

miles inland, closer to the house
detecting high tide in marshes and rivers
or its absence

salt hay in cow milk

Poem copyright 2016 by Jnana Hodson
To see the full set of seacoast poems, click here.