In seaweed and ruin, Mark Doty finds A Green Crab's Shell and also finds beauty. A painterly beauty of color revealed. A green crab, no longer green - now bronze and "shocking Giotto blue" - not shocking for its brightness (a modern painter would use dark cobalt blue to imitate it), but for its hidden beauty surrounded by ruin.
Select an object now in ruin. Imagine it in its earlier incarnation. What might shock us about its appearance? How does it help identify our own place in that process? Like Doty, pay particular attention to color and detail.
"A Green Crab's Shell" is available in
his collection Atlantis
Dark brown eyes,
dulled with age
the faint fog,
clouding lenses
recognizing only
misty familiarities.
Sound above the
ambient fluorescent din
and persistent beep
and whir
of the machinery of
life, hope:
a click, a beep --
repeated again,
but again, familiar
here and there,
voices, background
whispers
and echoed words:
"Mother, it's me."
Joan or Bill, the
name's bright,
a luminous gleam in
memory,
as children, her hair
curly, his straight,
the dreams of sea
green lawns
surrounding the tall
white pillars
and deep gray
flagstone porches.
In the years, white
paint chalked
and flagstone
cracked, weathered,
children became
grandchildren
and black hair, ever
so slowly grayed.
Gray now strangely
green
in the haunting
electrocardial glow,
liquid digital
reminders of the fade
of life, of hope, of
a candle light
as the flame crumbles
to ash.
John's
damaged
and scarred
muscles
have
wound
around his veins and
arteries
nestling in tandem to
work,
determined in the
snarl to function.
So now, in order to
correct the damage,
to straighten it all
out
requires severing and
removal
and quite possibly
bleeding to death.
But it has to be
done;
things have rotted underneath.
I've curled around
my pain
contorted to its
shifts and growths
until we've settled
into a sort
of working
comfort.
To straighten it all
out
is going to require
sharp edges
and careful
cuts,
scraping away of
fetid parts.
In order to start
fresh,
I know I've got to
get to something
smooth, pink and
tender.
Cheryl
Soback
The
Present
"What is a ruin
but time easing itself of endurance?" Djuna
Barnes
The eye sweeps
gray to gray
and then cannot sweep
it away.
The waves are small
and break
far off shore,
leaving a beach
longer and emptier
than before.
Shells crushed by
tides, trapped
behind driftwood, the
water
glides around and
through,
seaweed wrapped, it
could be
a fragile gift from
the angry sea.
Here. The
pieces already ruined
when you saw the
present.
This is what I had
for you.
And you know that two
shells
once were held
together by
something living,
now dissolved.
The beauty of these
pieces broken,
fashioned new, by the
ocean
absolved, even
they
cannot keep away the
gray.
Two civilize a
room;
hasten shadows
short.
With cup of
tea
in ivory, porcelain
cup;
ivory stained
flaxen
by leaves steeping
swirl
or strong brewed
beans
in cobalt blue, tin
cup;
black made blacker
by
obscurity of
tones.
His journal
notes,
blotted ballpoint ink
or
pencil charcoal
etched by palm
and my letters
crossed so neat,
upon rice paper
sheets;
most lyrical and
rhyming songs.
Chasm of distinctive
charm;
self-interests,
integrity differing.
and I say
Yes,
bedamn
one!
Light the
lamps;
even with candlelight
favored
and its aroma piously
strong.
Send in the
crowd!
It's been too
long.
Connie E.
Goulden
Scent of jasmine
on her kimono
Fine lines
on her upper lip
Far too
much makeup, now
What Has Been Ruined
The hide of the deer,
the corn-chapped field,
the dog in the well,
(I remember
the map of his bones), but not
the river, no, which is still
there by the bridges now,
a thrown skein of moiré,
the selvaged
bank, the tight weave
of reeds, but
yes, the acorn cup,
the grave’s dark
brown grace, the skirt
to the gray suit,
the child’s table with
its long blue bench, the
cracked hose on the nail,
people’s lives in bins
at the curb, the ruin
of their week, their brief
Sunday solemn purpose,
their prayers
for the fallen cities,
their torn sides, the evolve
of love, briefly noted, and
the clay cup I made
with the braided
rim, the gold-flecked
glaze, and the shard I saved
in the shape of
a heart, the red-fired heart
with its savaged lip,
(what was left to save), but
no, not the
day, the wheel’s hard gyre, and
no, not the
fire, nor the way
it took the flame.
After The
Flood
I pulled the
journal from the crumbling
box.
The pages
bloated, the binding glue
dissolved,
the words
running blue and black,
the smell
of mildew and decay
already
strong within it.
I set it on a
window ledge in sunlight to
dry
and in a
few days some fungus bloomed
upon it,
feeding microscopically, I
suppose,
on the
paper, glue and words.
I wondered if that
time in my life had been
reclaimed somehow.
Taken back from me
to those who lived
within it. If perhaps what
now grew upon those
words was not ruin
but some
redemption. And, so unlike me,
I buried it in the
ground. The dirt was black
and rich. The sky was
deepest blue. The sun
was strong. The
words would not grow;
this was no
poem. It was a man burying
a book in the
earth. In terra.
The remains of
something destroyed.
a child's toy
nothing more
discarded years
ago
to this final resting
place
a landfill of
worthless objects
plowed
asunder
a bent wheel with
broken spokes
pointing at awkward
angles
clinging perilously
to a rusted frame
hardly
recognizably
save for the small
seat that once carried
the laughter of a
small child
a little girl perhaps
on christmas day
being helped along
with a loving hand
or a little boy who
wanted to "do it himself"
the roar of the land
fill grader coming closer
to bury once and
forever the memories
the squeaking of the
metal as it is pushed against the blade;
a sound not unlike a
child that is grieving
for that which is
forever lost
Holding hands and
watching TV shows,
we'd fondle softness
we could not see;
but we felt it
there. But that was then.
Now there's
roughness, joints are apt to break
at the least impact;
though, in the dark
our touch is still in
season. But look!
The three-layered
derma, pinkly soft then,
matched the flush
your cheek so often shows
even now.
Except today, we see
the three have
a single see-through look;
and beneath - where
used to lie the dark -
we watch tendons and
gushing veins break
almost to the
surface from the dark
of INSIDE.
Life's silent Show of Shows,
under the gauze of
skin, makes its break
upon a stage where
everyone can see
the purple trees of
blood branching then
under the curtained
skin. Such a look
of transparency
already shows
more than we at our
age want to see!
Sagging, crepe-like
skin is bad; but then,
getting used to it -
or we won't look -
denies its presence,
taking a break
from reality of death
and dark.
Elasticity was
present then;
pigmentation not a
blotchy dark
of fungal
atrophy. We now see -
if an aging courage
lets us look -
each swollen
arthritic joint that shows
the pulsating
capillaries break
and swell in
twisted effort. Age shows
the body as finite
and can break.
Perhaps that's why
thick skin keeps it dark
in our early years;
so we won't see
the gradual wear and
tear - the look
of aging - the facts
of now and then !
The break of
supple youth from age shows
the dark miracle - in
time to see
then as prelude to
The Lasting Look.
For many years it
stood so proud
Up in the northland
above the crowd
Its tentacles spread
from shore too shore
And it carried the
weight of more and more.
It was painted
steel gray, kind of pretty in a way
As it gave entrance
too the vast New York City bay
Bright, strong and
new
From land a wonderful
view.
It's lights
twinkled bright far into the night
To become a landmark
too the great and the slight.
What would they have
thought, I doubt with delight
This complex device
could bring nothing but fright.
So back and forth
we did travel
Never expecting it to
unravel
It stood fast in the
wind, bombarded by rain
The ice that it
formed if struck we'd be slain.
Deep down its
fibrous roots clung to the clay
Hoping to keep it
sound for many a day.
But who could foresee
the future events
That began with a
chip, a bump and a dent.
The color did
change as the weather and sun
Beat down upon it
right as it hung.
The brown water
beneath invaded its ground
And did splash, dash
and sweep its foundation around
The salt from the
sea attacked it by air
And fastened itself
to the great shrouds Oh so bare
Corrosion, explosion,
its joints suffered daily
Eventual decay from
this disastrous melee.
Now dingy and
stained, marked by time and neglect
This proud span
one-day soon would be the elect
For the furnaces of
Japan or some other place
This scrap would be
bought and would lay in disgrace
Ironic as it is a
new bridge is proposed
To replace this one,
its life at it's close.
The cars of Japan
will roll over its breast
Never knowing
they’re made of the old structures crust.
As I see it from
here on the far distant shore
I imagine the new
bridge and the years by the score
They will fly by with
abandon, with sun, wind and rain,
The salt and the
sand, an untimely refrain.
The Tappan-Zee
bridge as we've know her so well
Has many a story she
wishes to tell.
But perhaps we can
view her very much the same
As the Native
Americans, whose land we claimed.
We brought
what was new, "We'll give them much more"
But as we build and
renew their "spirits" grow sore
The once pristine
view they gazed hour by hour
Today is impeded by
construction gone sour!
Michael R. McCarthy