Poem: Observing a Return

by Fenella Johnson


I heard them first just after eight ;
their horns screaming in jubilant ecstasy,
which rose to the pitch of the swarming incessant flies
that we batted away with our hands,
then the sound of engines emerged, unscathed by,and clawed free from,the wind,
sound that felled the peace of the eveningand
as they gathered even closer,
I saw the men abroad,work soiled and sloth bellied.
Above the clouds roved the sky,
and below the little unfurled masters of waves,
nightcrawlers,
summer spun and unspeakably lovely,
iridescent as gladiolus
beloved and scattered by the ocean.
Not even the squelch of rain halted their stately approach,
as they moved not in that intoxicating pace of mid-summer,
but steadily
the boats shaking themselves free of the breeze
and splendidly,stupendously gliding into the bay.