From “Postcards”
By Bert Meyers
For Odette
ocean
There it is: an immense, gray, agitated circle ...
and all day long the boat goes on
like a cartridge across a turntable,
an old shoe in a storm,
dipping itself in the spume.
____
If the sun shines, the water grinds its glass.
____
When calm, the sea’s so blue
you could paint the sky with it.
Sometimes, it’s a green tablecloth
laid on the wind.
Fog—
sailing for hours
in the same spot;
and the joyful sound
of the invisible sea.
____
On the horizon, late at night,
a ship glows like the last café
still open
at the end of a boulevard
after the rain.
arrival
Two sailboats cross the bay,
as if the wind wore tennis shoes.
____
Villages, like broken pots,
or baskets of apples,
scattered on a mountainside.
____
And the light, so much light!
a harp burning in a glass.
village
A farmer swings a scythe,
tilting the blade’s sharp edge.
The weeds are waves that fall
on a glistening coastline.
When he stands it up,
the scythe’s a tall, one-legged bird,
whose long bill the farmer cleans.
____
The cemetery’s such a pretty town—
old, quiet, full of mansions.
People, flowers, crows, everyone comes.
____
A market in the street.
Herbs, those quiet housewives,
wearing their modest prints,
were found in the fields at dawn.
Clods of garlic, the kitchen’s diamond,
hang from every stall.
Cheese, like the walls of France;
red peppers with a plastic glow ...
____
The cook speaks softly, gesturing,
as if she were washing her hands in French.
She loves to look at the sea
when the water ripples
and a gaggle of rowboats
wobbles near the shore.
She talks to the chickens in the garden.
They’re very intelligent, she says ...
they’d tell us beautiful stories
if they weren’t so busy eating.
____
Frogs croak twenty-one in French all night.
____
In the morning, calves
stare at the world
with their mother’s eyes.
The rabbits quiver—
they know so much
about freedom, death.
____
Inside the moldy church
you’re wrapped in a damp rag.
A Christ, as smooth as soap,
hangs from a cross
near the entrance.
A bland virgin
in a faded blue robe
gestures from a niche.
____
Outdoors, a breeze
makes all the shrubs
look sociable.
White butterflies in a field
are the frayed handkerchiefs of those
who didn’t finish saying good-bye.
Notes:
The selection from “Postcards” was originally published in The Wild Olive Tree (West Coast Poetry Review, 1979) and is reprinted with permission of Daniel Meyers. For more information about Bert Meyers, please visit bertmeyers.com.
This poem is part of the portfolio “Bert Meyers: A Gardener in Paradise.” Read the rest of the portfolio in the January 2023 issue of Poetry.
Source: Poetry (January 2023)