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Our Neglected Dock in Paynes Prairie
by S. Pelham Flood
I remember timid, post-dawn sunlight
tickle distant leaves, flirt with Mallard
iridescence, bully drops of dew
on those late-summer Sundays.
Or was it Mondays in early fall on
that dock to nowhere
dry timber creaked above the still
brackish water, fickle vibration
roused mud-bugs, cypress breathed
as our footsteps tossed over aged plank.
I still go there sometimes,
that dock to nowhere, you know
I like to hear cricket legs rub,
frog throats clear, that soft rapping
of avian beak, the reeds catcalls
when breeze staunches hot breath of beaver,
or sometimes just simple silence
as mosses grow up bark.
That dock to nowhere
its bastard boards, half-submerged,
rise from water at its sides
like a haphazard fence
in your boyhood Detroit.
I hear you are happy in Iowa
Here, buried beneath water,
buried beneath books, sand and silt stagnate.
Here, I stare at pages and sand,
sogged detritus and make-shift dam,
all colored like the thousand rusty nails.
Here, I just am
that dock to nowhere.
09/19/2008 Posted on 09/19/2008
Copyright © 2024 S. Pelham Flood
| Member Comments on this Poem |
| Posted by Kristina Woodhill on 09/20/08 at 10:34 PM I admire your take on the Boardwalk photo. I like how this has a morning kind of beginning and the life you have breathed into the poem with flora and fauna just is quite stunning. The shift to a relationship feeling toward the end is subtle - really just a glimpse - and then with the "sogged detritus and make-shift dam" I can't help but think of a hurricane's aftermath. I also browsed through the Paynes Prairie website - gorgeous photos - a place one would remember and want to revisit. Your vocabulary is so very rich! Kudos, indeed. |
| Posted by Meghan Helmich on 09/29/08 at 08:17 PM a nice write. congrats on first place! |
| Posted by Quentin S Clingerman on 10/02/08 at 08:12 PM Congratulations on winning the photocontest.
Excellent description. Excellent writing. |
| Posted by Angela Nuzzo on 10/13/08 at 08:47 AM Excellent descriptions. The details you've chosen create a very unique piece & the wording is original. There is no by-the-book-cliche in this poem! Even if I had never seen the inspiration photo, I would still be able to "see" this dock. Very well done, S. :) |
| Posted by Meghan Helmich on 10/13/08 at 02:27 PM congrats on POTD. |
| Posted by Kristina Woodhill on 10/13/08 at 04:44 PM Congrats on POTD!! |
| Posted by Quentin S Clingerman on 10/13/08 at 11:52 PM Congratulations on Our Neglected Dock... as POTD. Well deserved. |
| Posted by Michelle Angelini on 10/14/08 at 03:57 AM Congratulations on POTD and an excellent poetic intepretaion of a photo. |
| Posted by Tony Whitaker on 10/18/08 at 04:35 AM A feeling of nature and the inner images conjured on this concisely painted poem of "that dock to nowhere". Outstanding and worthy. Congrats. |
| Posted by Colleen Sperry on 10/19/08 at 11:50 PM Congrats! |
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