O yes, Doug, you’re quite right and also helpful.
I’ve now got a better 23 lines from the kayaking and the rest of course is just doggerel…
thanks from Max
On Mar 18, 2015, at 10:29, Douglas Barbour <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> I see the title Max, but the first 6 stanzas feel apart form the rest, & their clear imagery of the remembered woe really well.The next bit feels somewhat fired, & more prosaic to me, though I like the ‘albino rainbows’ for sure. But it just seems a bit too busy & not as focused. Or maybe a different poem?
>
> Doug
> On Mar 18, 2015, at 8:43 AM, Max Richards <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>> Lake and River
>>
>> O to be on Lake Union today -
>> spring at its bluest - frost
>> on parked-car windscreens
>> evaporates fast -
>>
>> like those long-lost mornings
>> I parked and went solo
>> kayaking on the Yarra,
>> while mists curved away,
>>
>> the valley warmed up
>> and drifting on the current
>> I felt so present
>> in the slowing moment
>>
>> that the downstream rapids
>> seemed to defer themselves
>> absent-minded, till round
>> a bend river narrowed
>>
>> quickened to turbulence
>> tossed me about - left and
>> right I fended off rocks with
>> my double paddle, rushed
>>
>> through the gap and swerved
>> aside to some easy shallows
>> where wattle blossom powder
>> floated on shadowed backwaters.
>>
>> Here, jet trails curve in the sky
>> like albino rainbows
>> above Queen Anne’s Hill
>> and the Gasworks Park.
>>
>> I should go down where
>> the Lake rowing club
>> headquarters are -
>> their webcam shows
>>
>> sunlit water where they
>> put those slender boats in.
>> Later today maybe
>> from our window up here
>>
>> on North Capitol Hill
>> we’ll see tiny eights pull
>> out each with their coach nearby
>> in a motorboat exhorting
>>
>> them encouragingly.
>> Not long till their regatta -
>> best viewed by binoculars
>> perhaps from up here.
>>
>> Down at the lake will be bliss -
>> the gulls are doing well
>> just over there with some
>> late-breakfast shoal
>>
>> agitating the water
>> as if the fish want
>> to give themselves up
>> in the food chain.
>>
>> Down there yesterday
>> beside the lake, senior
>> Labrador and me,
>> I had him momentarily
>>
>> tethered to various
>> posts in the foreground
>> while I snapped view
>> after picturesque view
>>
>> of dog with pleasure craft,
>> with seaplanes, houses afloat! -
>> at the walkways between
>> rows of houseboats,
>>
>> everything by or on
>> water, blue sky above.
>> Seattle Seaplanes’
>> watch-dog woofed
>>
>> warnings to his mistress.
>> She shushed him, admired
>> my Lab, told us what bliss
>> it was to fly their tour.
>>
>> She’s qualified to fly,
>> but not commercially.
>> In twenty minutes we’d
>> enjoy an eagle’s view
>>
>> of Washington U,
>> Bill Gates’ estate,
>> Gasworks Park, the zoo,
>> and much much more.
>>
>> O to be on Lake Union
>> one spring day soon,
>> taking off into the blue -
>> our hundred-dollar eagle view.
>>
>>
>> Max in springy Seattle
>
> Douglas Barbour
> [log in to unmask]
>
> Recent publications: (With Sheila E Murphy) Continuations & Continuation 2 (UofAPress).
> Recording Dates (Rubicon Press).
>
> There is no life that does not rise
> melodic from scales of the marvelous.
>
> To which our grief refers.
>
> Robert Duncan.
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