A poem for Bastille Day and to celebrate French fishing heritage.
Scent of seaweed
floats in early
dawn light,
a lone fisherman rakes
mounds of
briny sargassum
off the landing.
Three wooden skiffs,
Rainbow Runner,
Sea Hawk, Marax,
hoisted on wooden blocks,
descending down
the mossy ramp,
wire fish pots stacked
as a brown rooster,
head bobbing forward,
pecks the shoreline.
Marlboro man,
face bronzed in
salt and light
with cigarette dangling,
crosses the parking lot, glistening bags
of ice in hand.
Mackerel, parrot,
grouper, yellow tail,
spiny lobster,
all chilled
in plastic tubs,
for sale, weighed
on a battered
aluminum scale,
this fragrant morning
of the ocean harvest.
In the shallows
two men seated,
one in stern,
hand on the
motor steering rod,
a plume of sea foam,
aquamarine wake
bubbles rippling,
the boat glides
to Villa Olga channel,
headed again to sea
for unknown catches.
Outstretched,
a solitary frigatebird
sails across the
cloudless blue sky,
wings up drafting
on sunlight,
ocean bound.
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