Pat West Gaff Rig Race

While on Martha’s Vineyard in September, I happened upon the indelible sight of dozens of wooden gaff-rigs and schooners lining up for a regatta. I biked back with my camera, overcome with the joy of these elegant vessels navigating wind and wave. Oh, to sail a wooden boat.

Noble Feathers

Noble feathers of the wind

Fall at the behest of their master,

Twice slain in that fallow field

Which men refuse to plow,

For there lay the bones

Of each one's murder, the

Deaths they carried out that

Carry out their own.

This, out of all truths, may be

Ascertained: death begets

Death, but also life, in

That day when the bones sprout,

Flourish, and bear fruit.

The fallow field shall be called

Fertile, and the men who

Slayed themselves will fear only beauty.

Snæfellsjökull, Iceland. 2019

A Sandy Sunset Serenade

2016

A sandy sunset serenade, strumming a submarine seagull, seated on a stump.

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My father grew up on the lake, and wanted a seagull guitar for as long as he could remember. He finally bought one. It came with a past—it lived for years on a submarine and was a central source of entertainment for the crew. You might say it's a bit worn down. My father would say it's got character. He returned to the Great Lake, Seagull in hand. Sitting down on a stump, he breathed the cool summer air, and sang of things fitting for such an instrument. It reminds me that I'd rather be worn and wise, with a story of grace, than to convince the world I've got it put together.