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SE Reimer Oct 2013
oh, san juans, your riches beckon
your wealth, your beauty calls
your waveless, salty waters blue
my heart since childhood draws
your waters lap at darkened rock
'round islands, bays and inlets fill
with returning salmon teeming
your breaking waters thrill
your tide, oh ever river changing
charges muddy oyster flats
your thriving pods of orca leap
o'er spray in mid-air acrobats
from seabed swift, cold and deep 
the lushness of your green hills rise 
your sun falls fleet like shooting star
your sparkling waters mesmerize
sailing craft from ’neath horizon
angels spread their wings of color
skirt your shoals and ply your straits
find safety anchored in your harbors 
oh, san juans, your wonder waits
your treasure and your magic calls
your waveless, crystal waters blue
my heart since youth still draws
calls me to return each year
to dip my paddle deep
when life averts the journey there
in dreams you beckon while i sleep
Post Script.
 
Twice in my early childhood my family vacationed in the San Juan Islands.  I say vacationed, when it was really to visit some of the dear church folk that supported my parent’s missionary work; but to me it felt like a vacation to another world!  
 
I recall being smitten by its ruggedness and remoteness, the enchantment of each island we passed; a world where a wave-less, salty, blue ocean laps the dark rock of the many bays and inlets of green forested islands; and the novelty that a ferry was the only way we could make the trip.  I remember exploring the tide pools with my brothers.  I remember crabbing with our father and gathering oysters from the rocky shores of Orcas Island.  I remember shucking oysters and our father frying them, something that outside this experience we rarely saw him do.  I remember fishing for flounder and cooking them up on the grill back at camp. I recall a time when we landed a pregnant ocean perch instead.  Were we ever surprised to see her give birth to a few dozen live babies among the floor boards of our little dinghy! We scooped up as many as we could reach and released them back to the ocean along with their mother.  One catch for thirty; a catch to remember for an 12 year old and a good lesson on the cycle of life. 
 
As I grew old enough to understand where this enchanted world was I determined to return.  Once married I made it a mission to share the beauty of the San Juan Islands with Becky and our children.  Our first visit back to the islands as a family was back in the late 1980's; she and I and our three sons.  Today, my children remember it for many of the same things I recall thinking as a child- they remember its rugged beauty, the adventure we took as a family, and yes, the novelty of the ferry ride across a waveless, salty, blue ocean.  

We’ve returned many times since then, and each time we’ve explored a little deeper and farther, and still we have yet to find an end to its richness.  Nowadays it's mostly just my wife and I; our tandem kayak accompanies us on the ferry ride over and begs for the taste of blue water and the hunt for a glimpse of one of the resident pods of Orca. On one particular paddle, while enjoying what we call a sunset cruise (a kayak paddle in summer twilight) out on Haro Strait, searching for Orca we didn’t find that night, we instead were mesmerized by a rather spectacular sunset and as she set she became a star, giving us front row seats to a star show. You’ll see in black and white on my home page banner what was a stunning show.

I wonder sometimes, if we lived among the islands, would its enchantment fade?  I’d like to think not.  For us, like a pilgrimage back to yesteryear, the San Juan Islands of Washington’s Salish Sea, a place that never fades or grows old.
Jai Rho Mar 2010
I sailed a laser
in the horseshoe bay
of an island
in the San Juans

The wind was blowing
from the south
at twenty
knots or so, it felt
like fifty on my cheeks

As I headed upwind
and felt the vessel heel,
my toes dug past
their strap,
I leaned to level 'til

My face was sprinkled
with the spray,
my hair was trailing
in the wake

And geese did glide
not far away,
just above the crests,
honking as I flew along
and just behind them

Skipping now and then,
my windswept face
like a stone
Robin Carretti Apr 2018
But as sad as it seems

the imposter

Came closer
"Winnie' Con Pooh"
Arrh
Grrh
path
Huh?

Dark
Goth
Earth
Eeeeh
Ever Imagine?

Both  R$Worth

Crooked teeth
To be born
(Singers)
That way
"Lady "GaGa"
Don't go near my
"Mama"_

All people, the stranger

fire up ranger


Conned to be dated

Wrong types
Websites
The bite
"Boston creme pie"

"Boston Cafe Strangler"
All over skype lies

All Don Juans
Fake Hollywood tans

Bad Moon impersonators

when its all said and

done

"We wanted every lie"

No way out 6 feet under

My little big lie slice of

Apple computer
Viruses stay memories
deleted


2 B myself? stolen gadgets
all over my shelf
Money trick hats of
rabbits

My house was empty


New Renovation
Devil Nation
Demolition

Some
R&R
Robin-Risque

My Coffee Imposter
Stealing my good beans


My cup

Naked Gun=Fun


Godfather of the mob
Loan shark
NY Central Park

*     *     *     *    *    

His imposter suit dark
crooked lines 2-B Pressed
Don't start me up
I am not
impressed

Recharge my
I- Am
Linked into the
 Imposter
phone

Why did they pick me
24/7 like a clone

Carnal $ Cuddly

Smart *** got nailed
Long French tipped
knowledgeable

and stealing
Wifes other dreams
remarkable it seems

The ***** laundering no

'Holy Water'

Eyes of the crime

Estee
Lauder*
The makeup case
mob of utilities
Being an Imposter
Such clever abilities

Dealing with morons
City cat felines
no catnip just
Scientology all
  %%%
brainwashing_


Reindeer ****** nose
Big tip Ghostbuster lose


Comic-con of
Roosters & Hustlers
bars filled
with bust her ******

Why are they so good

at what they do


That summer solstice


Throwing wedding rice
It's better when
U-R
fed up twice

My Bentley bruiser
French tickler

The computer browser,


Being adventurist

"Zen"

"Avatar"
Not human lover

Being fooled by the
right star


Was so foreign
"American Uptown Girl"
playing
Cons in her own
"Billy Joel World"
the piano stranger
Start him up Pluto

All heirs no fears

Startup! Uppishness

Her money so played up

The *** drive he rose up
Oh! Gosh!!

So *******

Upmanship_
why did the man
         Go
"DownDamn-no-tip
_
?


And the woman

she vanished

His upper pants

to her underpants



Give up_ Startup


Watching his upper lip

Meeting her lower lip

More deceiving

All con artist doers
Those eyes of snakes
Like a shoe shiner
Demon

Jupiter Mars and
fake stars
Imposter and his dog
trained him well
Just like that to roll the
money over

What a bad start
upbringing

Such laryngitis copycat

imposter singer dead ringer

The good thing she was left

with her wedding finger$$$$$$
Imposters or crooks having loads of fun don't get taken in the
shade and sun you do have  a chance perhaps it's better to run
La spirale sans fin dans le vide s'enfonce ;
Tout autour, n'attendant qu'une fausse réponse
Pour vous pomper le sang,
Sur leurs grands piédestaux semés d'hiéroglyphes,
Des sphinx aux seins pointus, aux doigts armés de griffes,
Roulent leur oeil luisant.

En passant devant eux, à chaque pas l'on cogne
Des os demi-rongés, des restes de charogne,
Des crânes sonnant creux.
On voit de chaque trou sortir des jambes raides ;
Des apparitions monstrueusement laides
Fendent l'air ténébreux.

C'est ici que l'énigme est encor sans Oedipe,
Et qu'on attend toujours le rayon qui dissipe
L'antique obscurité.
C'est ici que la mort propose son problème,
Et que le voyageur, devant sa face blême,
Recule épouvanté.

Ah ! Que de nobles coeurs et que d'âmes choisies,
Vainement, à travers toutes les poésies,
Toutes les passions,
Ont poursuivi le mot de la page fatale,
Dont les os gisent là sans pierre sépulcrale
Et sans inscriptions !

Combien, dons juans obscurs, ont leurs listes remplies
Et qui cherchent encor ! Que de lèvres pâlies
Sous les plus doux baisers,
Et qui n'ont jamais pu se joindre à leur chimère !
Que de désirs au ciel sont remontés de terre
Toujours inapaisés !

Il est des écoliers qui voudraient tout connaître,
Et qui ne trouvent pas pour valet et pour maître
De Méphistophélès.
Dans les greniers, il est des Faust sans Marguerite,
Dont l'enfer ne veut pas et que Dieu déshérite ;
Tous ceux-là, plaignez-les !

Car ils souffrent un mal, hélas ! Inguérissable ;
Ils mêlent une larme à chaque grain de sable
Que le temps laisse choir.
Leur coeur, comme une orfraie au fond d'une ruine,
Râle piteusement dans leur maigre poitrine
L'hymne du désespoir.

Leur vie est comme un bois à la fin de l'automne,
Chaque souffle qui passe arrache à leur couronne
Quelque reste de vert,
Et leurs rêves en pleurs s'en vont fendant les nues,
Silencieux, pareils à des files de grues
Quand approche l'hiver.

Leurs tourments ne sont point redits par le poète
Martyrs de la pensée, ils n'ont pas sur leur tête
L'auréole qui luit ;
Par les chemins du monde ils marchent sans cortège,
Et sur le sol glacé tombent comme la neige
Qui descend dans la nuit.
A spray of sparrows
ascend from the seed splashed
garden floor
perching high in the delicate branches
of my heart
together we warble our
Ode to Spring

Spicy Concador lilies open
their fragrant parasols in
curly vernal tresses

Jasmine petals tucked between
the crease of her ample *****
wafts deliriously
making us all a wee bit tipsy

Sticky sap of love oozes
from secret orifices and
long slender tree limbs

Hibiscus donned in frilly
Easter bonnets and climbing
red swashbuckling Don Juans
dance around Her graceful ankles

The garden is suddenly
So alive
So very pregnant

Zeppelin shaped dragonflies
buzz softly past our upturned lips
Spring's milk and honey kisses
showers the earth blessing our
burgeoning Spirits
There was a kind breeze
in the sweltering inferno
of an August Summer day
in Palm Bay, Florida

Penelope the climbing orphan
rose gazed up at me gratefully
as I trimmed away the last of
the blue sky vine
Now she could ascend in
all her purple glory

The breeze followed me to the jhoola.
As i sat swinging on the soft comfortable
cushions, I was thrilled to observe that
our white French trellis was finally adorning
herself with romantic red roses

Like a little love chateau in gay Paris
climbing Don Juans serenaded her vinyl bodice
in bold, flamboyant, valentine red

Out the corner of my eye I spotted the
handsome but shy red cardinal swaying between the
branches of our hibiscus bush located close to the
lantern shaped red bird feeder

Dewy sweetness of the moment filled my heart
leaning back in the swing, I thought to myself:

"This is certainly turning out to be a bright Red-Letter Day!"
Ken Pepiton Jul 6
If life had made up a mind,
in the neighborhood I formed from
communally, we might all notice, we'ld agree,
we might not be the first to say, we know.

But you know, life, or the active agents of it,
makes up our minds willingness to look, see if it

might be meaningful when seen another way.

The flipside of freedom to choose, what may
be taught
to children, and what must not,
under any circumstances, be allowed known,

before a child has reached the bloom of youth,
the useful strength age, draft age,
pulled into the slipstream
of easy will
to prove worth, true grit, traction,
hobnail boots, true secret weapon, stick
and stay, and make it pay, the exploitation
unwinding wars perfected reasonings,
to the victors go the spoils, boys,

discomplication has begun, the unraveling
of ever, once again, the stories tell, the tale,
told in tapestry since Carol King, at least,

during the era of top-forty aimed at boomers,
the largest cohort of like-minded consumers,
ever propagated using pride of new knowing,
to push the value proposition
in Alcoa over Kaiser.

What local tax-base funded schools,
were required to do, in Massachusetts,
as Brahmin first intention to mass convert,
depended on a deluder, and a deceiver,
to do the work,
first make believe God can hate you,
for knowing what Eve knew, some how.

Original disconnection from the wisdom,
sin leaves no mark, but in the faith abused,

to aim, and miss, leaves no stain, aim right…

use the logic words prove, knowing one
is not enough, each can mean so many-
possible provables, using patience, truths as
developed the rules for inclusion in the deme,
the select few among the many called, whom we
deem among the elect, to whom much is given,

from whom much is required, as noblesse oblige,
indeed, duty to God and Nation, County, if you will,

Natural words twist across old sores
from bully brothers, mollified by battle buddies,
those who bore the brunt,
those Bonus Expeditions,
those dust bowl pawns,
those road builders, and bridge builders,
that made the old days look real good
on television… Dizzy Dean,
and ***** Mays, and that one year,
there in the story that took us through
the Sixties, right up to 2024, the summer
any boomer alive in 1954 remembers,
Maris versus Mantle, and the tub scene in ******…
make up the mind that remembers Beatle Wigs,
And Whammo everything, every fad we had,
let that mind never really
recover after the exposure to war, from inside…
that few,
those boys, men, now,
this wedom, tuned to my signal, thinking, dams

break, eventually, all the dams doing damage,
to the original intention allowing letters to work,
break free and wild,
as magi slowly brought back wit,
the bit of branching used
to make us think once
more an old idea, we
think slow, like a all day sucker…
make an image, I, mage of my own eyes,
Lo', I see, and say, hey, you, can you see,

does that flag,
still hold the dowery,
those stars in field of blue
above the BEIC stripes of red,
on a background as white as this?

This vast empty white space,
white wall between us now, you
and we the instigating impulsive wills

to know, sublime, beyond simple,
serious knots to learn to tie,

turbans telling Sikhs, the ontology,
why we are we, the chosen ones, and

the others, those we, must imagine,
have another reason for being, as we

have crossbred, or so it seems, as we
continue using old war reasoning schema

constantly trying to find the art official.

Riches and ease of existing, does, in fact,
lead to slavery, the will is made subject
to the feeding power, always, the owner
owns the user's fees, this is only right, see

first come, first served,
woe be the Juans who come late,

get one shot,
blow it, and you blow it for as long as
the will you failed to do was yours as

in the holy scriptures, all versions, common
thread, the planet we became on,

common, clean enough to make use,
we use raw letter A formt secret intent
to think, we used to say, no word wasted,
to the t we cross and the I we dot. or don’t/
recall each inflection in the fashion shown
courtly, while
in judgment found being wanting,
will to make a way to reimagine, a we to
think the original intention taught to you, for your
attention paid, intently, learning, we who read,

know more than they who can, but don't.

Some learn late, some never learn.
Fools make children laugh, who pays the fools?

If I die before you read this, did the words feel flat?

I trow not, letting this mind found made up, be
just right, among unnaturally neighborly bears,
some thing lingers from first intentions,
it truly can be imagined, just so.

After all the amendments needed.
To undo the original malintentions,

tie your hopes to those whose riches came
from ancient forms of diversion during deciding

the fate of the functioning laboring classes.

This is now the zone f-
from Gol'ilocks, original intent.

fsure, strue, suptyou
step on a crack, breaks yo momma back.
Reasoning was never taught where I went to learn political correctness.

Are there no fifty year olds who want to be President?
The window in my childhood
bedroom facing southeast
hasn’t changed –

Same scratched sill, torn
screen

Sticking in the same place
when opened too wide –

but the world beyond it has

People walk their dogs
wearing surgical masks

The hospitals spill over
like cupped palms beneath
a broken faucet

And yet beyond the window,
the world goes on:

The absentminded Aspens
shiver in the gusting wind

Shaking their leaves like
tiny tambourines

The cattle graze in the
pasture, unbothered

And the familiar saw-
toothed silhouette of the San
Juans lords over it all

as it has for thousands of
years before me, as it will
for thousands of years
after I am gone.

– mrg
Qualyxian Quest Feb 2020
Ferry boats slow ride my mind
         Seattle to San Juans
           seasky memories


                 Flicker on
Qualyxian Quest Jul 2020
Ferry through the San Juans
          sunlight, seagulls
                   salmon
Qualyxian Quest Jun 2020
An afternoon in the San Juans
    eating, walking, talking
               happiness

— The End —