Issue #20 (2011) PDF - myweb - Long Island University

Two Sonnets: Epithalamia for August First
Morning brings a wind shift.
Adrift, the long ship hulls an open sea
run out between the gull-white cliffs.
You waken from a girlhood reverie and
pale; the moon has filled and fallen
beyond cold arcs of ocean.
In oaken planks, the salt spume carves
runes to Freya‘s honor.
Kinfolk, waving, line the black wharves
even as the sail fills, boasting
loudly the bridegroom‘s name.
Amidships, turn your Viking eyes away:
nothing in the fair wind or following sea
distracts you from the happiness to be.
***
Merchants bright with foreign treasure
implore the saints protect their venture
coursing the Atlantic run.
Hope is a warehouse in the Spanish sun.
A hurricane impossible to measure
engulfs the fragile arts of men;
loud prayers are offered up again.
So, different prayers are answered to the same effect;
a splice-bent sailor‘s plea to save his neck
leaves less to God‘s discretion than the gold
caulked within this galleon‘s hold.
Echoes of the sea-swept cries
dim the memory of her eyes,
―O save me just to see them once again!‖
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