Hi everyone,
Yesterday I finally got set up for the Internet. What a difference it makes!
I also worked on my Word of the Month poem inspired by TRANSPORT. Here it is.
Captain’s Log
David L. Harrison
Becalmed,
another windless day,
ropes and rigging,
like my weary passengers,
sagging from boredom.
Godspeed is a good ship
but her canvas wants wind
to finish this historic journey.
We should be there now,
these colonists hard at the task
of settling in the New World,
yet creeping at this pace we’ll be
three more wretched months at sea.
Thirty-nine passengers, thirteen crew
on a vessel sixty-eight feet long –
Transporting human cargo
is too much stench and misery.
Let Susan Constant and Discovery
do as they will.
After this it’s only hard goods for me.
David
Canvas wants wind– is beautiful
Sent from my iPhone Joy Acey http://www.poetryforkidsjoy.blogspot.com
Good morning from Florida, Joy. Glad you like the image.
David
I love this!
Thank you, Jane. I’ve been writing about Jamestown lately for another project so this one came naturally. Actually, the captain in question, Bartholomew Gosnold, remained in Jamestown and died within months. He’s buried there somewhere. There has been a search for his bones but I don’t think they’ve been identified yet.
David
Fascinating stuff, David. Best wishes with this project. You make the past speak!
Wonderful, David! I’m all at sea thinking about it :0)
Thank you, Catherine, he said, smiling back.
David
Can’t believe they have rocky shorelines like that in Florida!!
And you, “all drama” from the low angle of the camera-woman!
Love, Jeanne
Please check my mobile poem written yesterday in the car on the iPhone on the way to the hospital for surgery:
http://www.thevibrantchanneledcreator.wordpress.com
Dear Jeanne,
Does anyone ever get anything by you? Okay, you got me; it’s a picture from Cannon Beach in Oregon. But it’s the only one in my files with me near water. Guess I’d better take some pictures while we’re here! Love back.
Surgery? What surgery? Are you okay?
David
Oh I love that photo, so glad you have the internet now so you can send beauty like that. I’d much rather write about the sea & transport than what I wrote, David. I liked the voice in your poem, resigned, but still admiring his “baggage”. Here’s my response to ‘transport’:
My car engine starts grumpily
in the cold of two below.
Exhaust clouds billow,
hiding my shivers,
while scrape,
scrape,
scrape
rakes my ears.
I imagine the steering wheel,
my fingers aching
no matter the gloves.
Wheels crunch down snowpacked streets.
I cannot stop shouting delight
at the heater,
finally
finally
blowing warm.
Little things mean a lot.
Hi, Linda. Brrr! You made me shiver all the way down here on this 70 degree day. I’ve been writing outside in my short sleeved shirt. Now I feel like pulling on a coat!
David
Linda, I can relate to the message, that’s for sure, and love the sounds you’ve included here.
Thanks David & Jane. It’s supposed to be around 45 tomorrow & we are all celebrating-heat wave!
Ooh, you can just feel everyone “sagging from boredom” on that stinky ship! Love the historical background for this. What misery those voyages must have been.
Thank you, Renee. It’s hard to imagine such wretched conditions yet thousands of migrants endured them to reach the place of their hopes and dreams. I can easily imagine how a ship’s captain might have muttered to himself now and then about his profession.
You give such a realistic voice to the captain – it’s almost like I’m there. I especially like the comparison of “ropes and rigging” to the passengers. The lengths people will go to fulfill their destiny!
Thank you, Matt. Voice begins by developing a sense of time and place. I could never be an actor on stage but I think writers are actors in their heads, hearing the characters they develop as they think and speak their way through the story or poem. If I had not “been there,” I might have missed how those ropes assumed the same listless look as the passengers sagging against the rail.
Love the last line: “After this it’s only hard goods for me.” You can really feel the Captain’s weariness and finality in that line. Thanks for sharing, David.
Hi, Bridget,
I’m glad you like the poem. Funny, isn’t it, how poetry can speak of history, or at least the historical moment?
David
What Bridget said, above. (Shades of Noah’s ark?) A few details like you give sure bring history to life. Glad you’re online to be able to share this!
Thank you, Violet. I forget who said to write big by writing small, but often it only takes one or two details to bring a scene to life.
David