slack tide

Dawn unfurled under clouds glowing like embers

as I began my paddle up river, riding the tide's return.

I can't tell you of the sea, rolling infinitely

I can only tell you about what I know:

the rock and sand beach on either side,

the white pines scratching at the sky.

Propelled by one blade at a time
cutting into the water
salt and fresh combined
sometimes splashing up onto my hands
and dripping off my brow.

A heron watches with his crane neck
standing knee deep in the shallows
then with a honk of objection takes flight
on a river I cannot follow on.

I bend to my task, lean forward
reaching farther with each stroke
as I feel the push of the tide slackening.
Now it is my muscle and determination alone
that brings me deeper inland.

The poplar and oak mix with the pines
creeping closer to the narrowing channel.
They tower and crowd the sun,
which is now high over head.

This is slack tide:
the in-between moment of neither coming nor going.
I pause and let the boat come to a stop,
my paddle across my lap.
A barred owl has been watching me
from the shadows.
We are statues, he in the woods, I on the water.
Then I raise the paddle in salute.

I feel I am almost there
and I begin churning like a seated windmill.
The trees are marching past me
and the marshy grasses slide along
keeping time.

I roll and drag at the water, breathless
until I feel the pull of tide telling me time is up.
I pause for a moment, then keep pulling,
fighting to see what is behind one more bend.
Too soon, I chant. Too soon.

My paddle scoops sand from the bottom
and I see dark mud along the shore
where the water has receded.

I pause again, I see the heron at the next bend ahead
he cocks his eye at me.
I am drifting backwards now
but I meet his gaze and hold it for a time.
Soon it will be too shallow to paddle here
and if I linger, I will be stranded.

I turn my boat back
into the embrace of the river,
retracing my journey,
but now I try to engage with each rock
appreciate each leaf.

As the river widens I realize
I did not see the owl again.
I look over my shoulder
before I meet the sea -

The wire legged heron
is there watching me pass beyond.

Cooking for my Daughter

Like her ancestral Bastet*,

the cat’s head barely moves
as he takes in the scene of me
mixing yeast and water, flour and salt.

This dough is for pizza,
a family staple that goes back
before my daughter’s birth,
a time I remember as if it were only a story
and of course, she does not remember at all.

She’s coming for lunch in a few hours.
This evolution in our lives
is like the day after the discovery of the wheel,
or the first summer after the domestication of wheat:
everything is different, but we’re not quite sure
what it all means just yet.

Later I punch down the risen dough
and roll it out.
I paint the surface with olive oil
then spread tomato sauce and cheese –
New World innovations
covering over Old.

* Bastet or Bast (Ancient Egyptian: bꜣstjt "She of the Ointment Jar", Coptic: Ⲟⲩⲃⲁⲥⲧⲉ[2] /ubaste/) was a goddess of ancient Egyptian religion, worshiped as early as the Second Dynasty (2890 BCE). Her name also is rendered as B'sst, Baast, Ubaste, and Baset.[3] In ancient Greek religion, she was known as Ailuros (Koinē Greek: αἴλουρος "cat").
Bastet was worshipped in Bubastis in Lower Egypt, originally as a lioness goddess, a role shared by other deities such as Sekhmet. Eventually Bastet and Sekhmet were characterized as two aspects of the same goddess, with Sekhmet representing the powerful warrior and protector aspect and Bastet, who increasingly was depicted as a cat, representing a gentler aspect.

chains

what have I been paying attention to 

that words won't come together now

like grade school children in a line

holding hands so that none of them 

get lost, or left behind.

Reading Aristotle's Politics

I am reading Aristotle’s Politics

at my kitchen table

with the morning light

spilling across my coffee.

I imagine the great philosopher

also at his kitchen table,

with a hard loaf of bread

and perhaps some olive oil,

considering whether there are

seven types of courts, or perhaps eight.

Light from the same sun

reflects off of the oil in its shallow saucer

and he pauses his logical progress

to think of Plato, some years gone.

This is not in the pages I am reading,

not directly, at least.

but my mind has been running

down the footpaths he first walked

and have since been trod by kings and monks

and all manner of forgotten readers.

By this miracle of written word

I am more inside his ordered psyche

than if he were sitting across from me

And asking me to pass the salt.

**

Listen: https://soundcloud.com/mbonica/reading-aristotles-politics

or https://youtu.be/d27C8cGLKkA