Cape Cod Poetry: Between darkness and dawn
Many of this month's winning poems are written at the intersection of darkness and dawning. While the topic is often sad, there is revelation in the discovery.
Every month, the Cape Cod Times runs a poetry contest open to all Cape Codders and judged by a panel of published poets. The deadline for our next contest in July 1. Rules for entry are below.
Meet the local poets:
Bernadette Waystack is primarily a visual artist who occasionally paints images with words. She lives in Harwich Port where she maintains a studio at 204 Sisson Road in Harwich. Living by the ocean feeds her soul.
Inspiration: The inspiration for “Between Two Oceans” comes from time spent on both, at home on Nantucket Sound and in the U.S. Virgin Islands.
Between Two Oceans
By Bernadette Waystack
I live between two oceans
In my mind
And sometimes in reality.
The cold ultramarine of the North Atlantic, my permanent place
Nantucket Sound softening to a warm gray-green in summer,
liquid folds of sunlit aquamarine I watch with rapt attention but rarely enter.
No “ocean-view” for me
but I can smell its briny breath and hear its angry mumbles
from my backyard,
Grateful to abide by this shore even as I fear what lies beneath.
Its murky depths mean home.
And still the tropical turquoise of the Caribbean calls like a siren’s song
And in winter’s frigid grasp I yearn for its silky sling of viridian.
“Starfishing” myself, I spread out, floating under the same blazing sun, stretching fingers and toes wide
Soaking it all up. Soaking it all in.
Saving it up until the next time I can loll in this salty womb
without care of what else moves through the currents along with me
A fantasy I sometimes get to live in for while
I live between two oceans
In my mind
And I am at peace.
***
Bruce Taub lives in Orleans and mostly authors legal briefs.
Inspiration: In this poem I was inspired to depict in words and visual images the contrasts provided by the retreat and the advance of the seasons and of life and death at our shores.
when spring arrives ice flows out of the bay
By Bruce Taub
when spring arrives
the ice flows out of the bay
but the dead dolphin does not.
something is eating him,
portions of his tail gone,
a fin.
a creature with sharp claws
has opened a gash in dolphin’s soft underbelly
from which still red entrails fall
onto flattened marsh grass
and what was once beautifully poetic
turns macabre,
frightening,
disintegrating,
the promise of resurrection eradicated
in the reality
of what remains,
and what remains
is what is never more,
in spring,
when the ice flows out.
***
Lisa McNeill lives in Yarmouth Port with her husband and rescue dog and writes with Dune Hollow Writers.
Inspiration/motivation: This poem came after the mass shooting at Tops Market in Buffalo following so many shootings in our country. I wrote it before the Uvalde, Texas, shooting at Robb Elementary School, but I think we all had a clear sense that there would be more mass shootings. It comes from a sense of hopelessness. In the absence of gun control laws, what else is there?
Mercy in the Absence of Solutions
By Lisa McNeill
Another one another ten
another loss another tragedy
beyond comprehension
taking elemental innocence
and turning it upside down.
He was not an original author
nor the last bearer of grief and anger.
Bound him take him back
to a new childhood
where field lines disappear
and the path that touches the darkness
grazes it only
feeling the shiver of the damp, dank wisps
of deceit before turning
to understand the wink of lights
are there by grace.
May the wide, infinite Mercy
of this spectacular and beleaguered universe
be enough to hold both
the innocents and the guilty.
***
Arthur Eri Stewart lives in Chatham. He's a WWII Marine veteran and author of five books.
Inspiration: “Facing 96” was written on the eve of my birthday as I reflected on this time in my life. I believe it addresses a question we all have to answer as we get older.
Facing 96
By Arthur Eri Stewart
I’m Ninety-six and trying to really make up my mind
Should I live in the past or watch the future unfold
One would think I don’t have much choice but I do
There still may be some tales I have not yet told.
Tales of choices I’ve made in my life, tales of people
That I have admired, and could not control.
My Mother, my Father, my Sister, my Brothers,
My Aunts, my Uncles, my Cousins, I seem to be the last.
My Wife, Elizabeth who nursed and saved lives in Korea
Who came home and married me for thirty-one years.
My friends, my children who are many years younger,
You see it’s their future that I want to last longer.
Maybe I’m over-thinking, in my life I’ve always looked
forward. So, I have to finish the final pages of my book.
Well there you have it, I’m still looking forward, so be of
good cheer. It’s been a full life and I’ve loved my children.
Add to that my six Grandchildren who I also love most dear.
So why should I not look ahead without fear?
It’s like building a house, you go on till it’s finished and
when that’s done, your work feels completed.
So, join me with Mom, two veterans together and take
home our flag and keep it forever.
***
Orleans is home for Ginia Pati. Her poetry has been presented by WCAI, WOMR, chapbooks/anthologies, and the Cultural Center of Cape Cod.
Inspiration: Inspired by the eerie stillness of awakening to a black-and-white world of winter's first heavy snowfall...every detail etched in frozen abstraction, erasing a world of color.
Be Still
By Ginia Pati
Stark ebony lines lay across frozen plateaus
of dazzling ice reflections of arctic summer
iceberg angles become shadows unmoving
unbreathing despite incessant winds
all is frozen steadfast even the planetary spin
pauses to await the wing of snow bunting or tern
The fiery orange of my jacket sleeve
insinuates flame against the white iron
of ice slabs long stiffened by harsh silence
faint wisps of moist breath cannot exit their portals
earth and all creatures alike stay mesmerized
until the spinning cosmos resumes.
10th Grader Writes Poem
By Margaret Rice Moir
Peyton’s poem is not a child’s poem. It doesn’t dance off the page on light feet
It’s not exuberant (the editor notes that she is in 10th grade)….maybe 16 years.
But this is not a poem that looks ahead to a world of extravagant possibility.
It’s a grey poem. She writes how her tears fall gently on the rippled surface of the pond
where she observes her smooth face fold into the water’s movement.
She speaks of isolation, weariness and feeling unknown.
These are the thoughts of old people. Bitter people. Peyton is too young
to imagine the filmy bottom of the lake. Too young to hold her breath such a long time.
Too young to see what takes years to learn.: that the grown-up world has betrayed her.
I think we have stolen her childhood. I would change places with her if I could,
give her my life, just to be sure she survives.
How to submit your poem
Here’s how to send us your work:
Submit one poem, single-spaced, of 35 lines or fewer per month.
Poems cannot be previously published (in print or online).
Deadline for the next submission is July 1, 2022.
Submit by email to cctpoetry12@gmail.com.
Poems should be free of hate speech and expletives (profanity, vulgarity, obscenity).
IN THE BODY OF THE E-MAIL, send your contact information: name, address, phone number and title of poem; then, IN A WORD .DOC ATTACHMENT include poem without name or any other personal info, so that the poem can be judged anonymously.
Poets not previously published in the Cape Cod Times are welcome to submit a new poem each month; those poets previously published in the Times, three months after publication.
Poets will be notified only if their poem is accepted.
Poems will be selected by a panel of readers on the Cape and Islands who are published poets and editors.
This article originally appeared on Cape Cod Times: Here are the Cape Cod Times Poetry contest winning submissions
