Barbara Leon
The Shearwaters at Sunset
They gather offshore like
a storm -
the kind back east, when
maple leaves swirl in gusts,
their open hands stopping
light. Here, birds cloud the sky,
dark shapes set off by sun rays
glancing off white
underwings, the shearwaters
dive, splash lightly
like raindrops.
They slice the crests off
waves,
scan ocean’s surface
for herring schools. They race,
a whirling dervish of birds, sucking
fish inside a maelstrom.
Stirred up by the ruckus,
pelicans plunge and
gulls swoop
in a rush of squawks
and flapping.
You stand, immersed
in lapping waves, as fish slap
your ankles and calves,
sky behind you backlit
to gunmetal blue and
Up on the sand,
two teenaged boys
eyes squinting, jaws tight
as traps, aim stones
at feathered bodies,
beyond their reach,
as if to bring down
this anarchy, this force
inside themselves.
Vision off Point Lobos
The humpback flew
as though its long flippers
were wings, sliced open
the ocean and rose, arcing
like an acrobat,
each leap higher
than the last, skywriting
exclamations of joy.
Pictured at rest, the humpback
is a thick, dull-gray creature
so leaden, you'd think
it would sink to the bottom
of the sea, doomed to moan
its haunted songs forever,
instead, it swims steady,
with massive endurance,
builds up speed, hoists
its 40-ton body, big
as a school bus, and bounds
to freedom.
Once, my generation
poised to leap. We'd been drifting,
eyes half closed in the murk,
when we sighted sun, streaking
down the kelp forest, and flashing
through the fronds. We swam, raced
toward our bright future, but weeds
entangled us and night closed in.
I've been slogging
through these waters,
so long now,
can't tell my inertia
from the current.
Show me how it's done, humpback.
Lifted in the wake of your flight,
I believe I could
break through to light.
Bio:
Barbara
Leon, a writer and editor in the natural health field, lives in Aptos,
California. Her poetry has been published in americas review, ConversationPeace
Santa Cruz, In Our Own Words, Porter Gulch Review, and the Anthology of Monterey
Bay Poets, and is forthcoming in Calyx. She is the recipient
of Porter Gulch Review's 2004 Frances Hedgpeth Memorial Poetry Award. She
has also received honorable mention for the Emily Dickinson Award (Universities
West Press) and the People Before Profits poetry prize (Burning Bush Publications),
and was a finalist for the Lois Cranston Memorial Prize (Calyx).
