Third Place Winner, November 2005 InterBoard Poetry Competition

Poetry

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Poetry

InterBoard Poetry Competition

Third Place Winner, November 2005

BEFORE THE STORM
Catherine Rogers
(Poets.org)

For here we have no lasting city. . . . (Hebrews 13:14)

We should have learned to hold life lightly here
where captains’ homes are crowned
with widow’s walks. Whalers were gone
two years and more: so long to wait for news.
At the river’s mouth, a bronze girl stands
forever, waving.

The northern coastline bares its teeth;
the southern shoals extend smooth arms
to welcome cyclones. We glance up
at the march of thunderheads.
Here nothing lives beyond the reach
of water and wind.

Was it easier before we rode the clouds
and dropped our ticking instruments
to calibrate the storm?
Easier to drown surprised in the house,
awash with memorabilia?

Is it better to take our solitary way
as we do now, stitched in our skins,
empty-handed, knowing
what we know?

Judge Ravi Shankar’s comments: “‘Before the Storm’ is another poem that describes an archetypal situation, sketching the existential state of waiting, with memorable images--the bronzed woman forever waving goodbye (or hello), never realizing the subjects of her desire, resonates beyond the reach of the piece. The poem also broaches an important question; how much foreknowledge have our technological innovations really provided us? Are we any better off for having ridden the clouds, calibrated the storms? Or are we nomads even when we have meteorology and a stable place to live? Drowning, the poem does well to remind us, can even happen on land, surrounded by a tidal wave of possessions; nothing lasts, much as we would have it be so.”