The Sounding Sea

 (After reading Quasimodo, and remembering Tennyson)

I've never heard the sea at night 

sound light. Rather

it’s always a roar, a rhythmic 

deep wild pulsing

over and over again.

And I remember standing

with you, just inside 

our open door to listen, 

or out in the starlit garden

(when you were still alive).

But now I live too far 

from the sea and do not hear

its reassuring voice at night, 

huge like the world’s heart-beat.

Nor, ever again, your voice.

American poet Dobby Gibson suggests that 'poems, like birthdays, are intensely serial'. This one of mine was inspired by, and is partly a reply to, Salvatore Quasimodo's 'The Sea Still Sounds' (from his Selected Poems, translated by A.S. Kline) see below.  Quasimodo's piece, in turn, puts me in mind of Tennyson's 'Break, Break, Break' – although I have no evidence that Quasimodo was influenced by that poem, and indeed the thrust of his is rather different, not being elegaic.

The Sea Still Sounds

from Salvatore Quasimodo: Selected Poems, tr. A. S. Kline.

Even more so at night the sea still sounds,

Lightly, up and down, along the smooth sands.

Echo of an enclosed voice in the mind,

that returns in time; and also that

assiduous lament of the gulls; birds

perhaps of the summits that April

drives towards the plain; already

you are near to me in that voice;

and I wish there might yet come to you

from me, an echo of memory,

like this dark murmur of the sea.

I'm sharing this post at Poets and Storytellers United's Friday Writings #15: "After" Another.

NaHaiWriMo 2022, week 3

Buenos Aires

fair winds

bring all the world here

to flourish

15/2/22

Beijing

headlong

down my TV screen –

Winter Olympics

16/2/22

Melbourne

decades of change –

but I’ll still meet you

under the clocks

I lived there for over 30 years, and although I’ve now 

lived elsewhere for 28, I’ve visited quite often to catch 

up with family and old friends.

this year I’ll miss

the family reunion –

travel got too hard

17/2/22

New York

young lovers

in Central Park –

timeless 

18/2/22

Photo by my late husband Andrew Wade.

Rome

so many tales,

photos, movies, songs – as if

I’d really been

19/2/22

Vancouver

arty, green, diverse, 

and very liveable – but

I hate the cold

20/2/22

Auckland

(1)

just next door

across the ditch – yet

I’ve never been

(2)

my brother’s home

for decades now, but 

never mine

(3)

please, NZ,

please clone and send us

Jacinda!

21/2/22

Sharing with Poets and Storytellers United via Friday Writings #17 (off prompt).

NaHaiWriMo 2022, week 2

Rio de Janeiro

bossa nova –

girl from Ipanema

swaying

Image © Rosemary Nissen-Wade 2022

8/2/22

Seattle

sea tale

(tell-tale, sea tattle) –

by the sound

Punning a bit at the end, as Seattle is on Puget Sound.

9/2/22

Reykjavik

can hot springs

in a land of ice

be enough?

10/2/22

Accra

Nkrumah –

hero or tyrant?

Perhaps both.

11/2/22

Honolulu

beach, nightlife …

above all Pele 

fire goddess

12/2/22

Dubai

twenty pics 

to entice a visit – 

ugh! so urban

Inspired by an online tourist ad for the city.

13/2/22

Paris

true I’ll never

alas – with the warm wind

etcetera

After a friend was mystified, I thought I'd better explain. This alludes to lines from The Ballad of Lucy Jordan (sung by Marianne Faithfull): 'She realised she'd never / Ride through Paris in a sports car / With the warm wind in her hair'.

14/2/22

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sharing (off prompt) with Friday Writings #16 at Poets and Storytellers United.

NaHaiWriMo 2022, week 1

This year our daily prompts are names of cities – few of which I'm acquainted with (this week, only London and Sydney).

London 

‘But the history!’ 

he said — while I still

hated cities.

1/2/22

Sydney

New Year’s Eve –

fireworks on the Bridge

defy COVID

2/2/22

 

 

Montreal

Montreal

gave us Leonard – 

Hallelujah!

3/2/22

Berlin

(1)

Julie Harris

in ‘I Am a Camera’ –

my Sally Bowles

(2)

forget Nazis

forget The Wall – I dream

of Cabaret

4/2/22

Cape Town

old age –

so many places

I’ll never see

5/2/22

Tokyo

rearrange the name –

find the birthplace of Reiki

via Kyoto

6/2/22

Moscow

(1)

coloured cupolas 

belie the imagined grey –

the usual photos

(2)

Moscow 

home of ballet, and 

the bogeyman

7/2/22

 

Sharing this with Poets and Storytellers United at Friday Writings #14 – choosing not to follow their prompt this Friday (which is Monster Madness).

In Winter

In winter she howls,

crouching down in the dirt,

trying to burrow away from the storm.

The forest howls too,

in echo, in its own tongue,

silencing everyday rustlings and shrieks.

She is cold to the bone,

lost and alone in the night,

bereft of rhythm and rhyme – in chaos.

No lullaby soothes,

no warm arms embrace.

No-one is coming, ever, to save her.

The tell-tale light
of the white, remote moon

shows her only despair; never changes.

Written in response to Friday Writings #13 at Poets and Storytellers United, where we are asked to use at least three of the following words:  bone, night, tell-tale, rhyme, tongue, storm, forest, moon, chaos, winter, echo, howl, dirt.

I used them all – but the poem stemmed from that one word, 'winter'. I hate the cold! As a child, I have fainted from cold; as an adult I have cried with cold, become disoriented in cold – so the above scenario is not altogether far-fetched.

Image © Rosemary Nissen-Wade 2022

Cat Gogyoshi

HUMIDITY CAT

All day she sleeps –

collapsed, a limp rag.

She wakes only to eat.

In cool night she prowls

glaring out windows.

18/1/22

COVID CAT

In times of distance 

and staying home,

our warm cuddles

meet my need for touch –

and, her purrs tell me, hers.

27/1/22

CUDDLE CAT

After my long day out

she runs to greet me,

leaping for joy

straight into my arms,

nestling for hugs.

30/1/22