"mudflats" poems - Hello Poetry

i stand at low tide, heart receding my toes squishing gushy sand tiny skyscrapers rise up and fall toes press downward seeking purchase i look out and see the mudflats teaming with the small creatures of life digging their way deeper to find a tiny surge of water the solace of home a thimbleful of water so trivial so significant my heart lies thirsty as I dig down further seeking my own surge.

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Jan 8, 2012

Jan 8, 2012 at 10:09 PM UTC

audrey-howitt

Low Tide

i stand at low tide, heart receding my toes squishing gushy sand tiny skyscrapers rise up and fall toes press downward seeking purchase i look out and see the mudflats teaming with the small creatures of life digging their way deeper to find a tiny surge of water the solace of home a thimbleful of water so trivial so significant my heart lies thirsty as I dig down further seeking my own surge.

16

And the knowledge of the hedgerow plant, I found embedded in leaf veins ... like in mine, etched along blue lines of a notebook. In the ripples on the remnants of water that pooled, before the mudflats claimed them are the striations of ol'butot near Naivasha. His stories tell of caves, a gleaming obsidian of a pre historic introspection. Do forty day fasts suffice to exorcise the springs of sulphur or the forced baptism of a flash flood washing six souls to Hades ? The sun glinted at me through a narrowness of fate, a gorge of interminable seconds and I marvelled at the strata of time in a warp, for it blurted out a moan. Love spoke in nuanced layers of molten flow that crawled to stillness. Can I not say that stone speaks? A couple of hundred years back in time, self titled discoverers had seen land that had not been unseen by the thousands who lived for thousands until then. So yes, the strata spoke to me, like the striations in the leaves and the lines that were everywhere telling stories of interminable seconds. Time grooves like a death valley in an engraving, etched like a memory of that which has never been, ripples on sand, circles on water,

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Apr 12, 2021

Apr 12, 2021 at 10:49 AM UTC

davinaesolomon

Lasting Ripples

And the knowledge of the hedgerow plant, I found embedded in leaf veins ... like in mine, etched along blue lines of a notebook. In the ripples on the remnants of water that pooled, before the mudflats claimed them are the striations of ol'butot near Naivasha. His stories tell of caves, a gleaming obsidian of a pre historic introspection. Do forty day fasts suffice to exorcise the springs of sulphur or the forced baptism of a flash flood washing six souls to Hades ? The sun glinted at me through a narrowness of fate, a gorge of interminable seconds and I marvelled at the strata of time in a warp, for it blurted out a moan. Love spoke in nuanced layers of molten flow that crawled to stillness. Can I not say that stone speaks? A couple of hundred years back in time, self titled discoverers had seen land that had not been unseen by the thousands who lived for thousands until then. So yes, the strata spoke to me, like the striations in the leaves and the lines that were everywhere telling stories of interminable seconds. Time grooves like a death valley in an engraving, etched like a memory of that which has never been, ripples on sand, circles on water,

2

Blessed are the poorly, for theirs is the kingdom of mudflats The dispirited streak turgid waters sinuously, through unsettled feelings in the wake of boats shedding filaments of fuel, sheen on a turbid infusion and the cordgrass nods a resilience or an apathy as the silt settles on their Piscean gleam Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see a salted heaven Angelic Menhaden of the Atlantic, are silvery stretches of scale, dulled in death under a festering sun and the retreating tide of dying waters brined in ocean, freshwater spirited to secret spaces, some dammed crevasse, now tumultuous fate in a salted heaven Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they shall be filled At the Tabgha of this intertidal palette Cattails whisper beatitudes latched onto the tails of wind gusts and the plovers descended in a litany of bird song amassed like the manna trailing tidal waters as the sea swallows herself. Blessed are the herons, the mallards, the geese. Time is measured in the passage of fish that cycle themselves through the innards of birds Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the rocks The meek Menhaden, leaped onto the rocks that hemmed the inlet, escaping the hungry habits of herons. They inherited Earth in agony pounding a rocky surface, but the air I swim, had no water. I prodded these Menhaden of the Rock to the fringe of retreating tides, and they leaped to die once more to breathe water that had no air Blessed are those that mourn, for they shall be comforted Blessed is the discomfiture of my brackish tears that streak marsh faces as fish struggle out of dead water. I take comfort I don't inhabit tainted places or do I take comfort, all places are the tint of poison, the gleam of a genesis of sorrow

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Jun 6, 2021

Jun 6, 2021 at 3:36 PM UTC

davinaesolomon

On World Environment Day ~Beatitudes for the dead fish that inherited the mudflats

Blessed are the poorly, for theirs is the kingdom of mudflats The dispirited streak turgid waters sinuously, through unsettled feelings in the wake of boats shedding filaments of fuel, sheen on a turbid infusion and the cordgrass nods a resilience or an apathy as the silt settles on their Piscean gleam Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see a salted heaven Angelic Menhaden of the Atlantic, are silvery stretches of scale, dulled in death under a festering sun and the retreating tide of dying waters brined in ocean, freshwater spirited to secret spaces, some dammed crevasse, now tumultuous fate in a salted heaven Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they shall be filled At the Tabgha of this intertidal palette Cattails whisper beatitudes latched onto the tails of wind gusts and the plovers descended in a litany of bird song amassed like the manna trailing tidal waters as the sea swallows herself. Blessed are the herons, the mallards, the geese. Time is measured in the passage of fish that cycle themselves through the innards of birds Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the rocks The meek Menhaden, leaped onto the rocks that hemmed the inlet, escaping the hungry habits of herons. They inherited Earth in agony pounding a rocky surface, but the air I swim, had no water. I prodded these Menhaden of the Rock to the fringe of retreating tides, and they leaped to die once more to breathe water that had no air Blessed are those that mourn, for they shall be comforted Blessed is the discomfiture of my brackish tears that streak marsh faces as fish struggle out of dead water. I take comfort I don't inhabit tainted places or do I take comfort, all places are the tint of poison, the gleam of a genesis of sorrow

50

out on the mudflats washed up by an angry sea a shell remains parched by the sun a little bright paint to remind whoever bothers to look of the colour they once had hauntingly beautiful shapes at dusk ghosts with shrouded faces Silt there to block the estuary a danger to shipping of no use to anyone but foolish romantics who see the glory days gone by a little sense of history, reverence to the way things used to be when they're gone another age will discard the waste of lonely forgotten souls on the shoreline

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Feb 18, 2020

Feb 18, 2020 at 4:32 AM UTC

nigdaw

Wrecks

out on the mudflats washed up by an angry sea a shell remains parched by the sun a little bright paint to remind whoever bothers to look of the colour they once had hauntingly beautiful shapes at dusk ghosts with shrouded faces Silt there to block the estuary a danger to shipping of no use to anyone but foolish romantics who see the glory days gone by a little sense of history, reverence to the way things used to be when they're gone another age will discard the waste of lonely forgotten souls on the shoreline

20

I wonder if someday, he thought, perhaps someone will maybe notice that I stood here? He stared across the endless, quaking mudflats, steaming beneath a hot, young sun. As his feet began to slowly sink, he crushed some lowly creature gasping for breath beneath his heel. Sighing at all creation and the report he must now send to his superiors, he unwittingly left his mark.

0

Mar 12, 2018

Mar 12, 2018 at 6:03 AM UTC

al-drood

And Did Those Feet?

I wonder if someday, he thought, perhaps someone will maybe notice that I stood here? He stared across the endless, quaking mudflats, steaming beneath a hot, young sun. As his feet began to slowly sink, he crushed some lowly creature gasping for breath beneath his heel. Sighing at all creation and the report he must now send to his superiors, he unwittingly left his mark.

12