NAVIGATING BY BRAILLE - Poem

 

NAVIGATING BY BRAILLE

 

(copyright 2013, by Dave Kiffer)

 

I ford this stretch by ferry

A flat-bottomed spoon of a boat

A short hop on the descendant

of the same broke-back water

Which so challenged Grandpa

 

Not this narrow stretch, of course,

But the storm-tossed general sea

That pushed his urge to probe

Each rock pocked blank chart shore

As if he chose to navigate by Braille

 

I remember that as I watch

Two ravens gamboling above,

Rising off the water in a narrow

Fly speck of circular ascension

Wings whipping together until

 

They stop, and drop, as one

Playing chicken with the earth,

But only for an instant, as if suddenly

Afraid of an air empty of beating

Wings, then flapping sharply higher

 

To do it again

 

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