Fool to stand on a South Carolina beach,
Lord how I love that snap in the air
That arrives before lighting and thunder.
The sky turns green and tides drop
Away from the shore.
Birds fly lower. I raise my arm
To snatch a feather or two.
Metal poles crackle.
Can I taste steel? Does my head
Throb? Sharks heading out to sea?
Trouble’s on the way.
I long for the rumble that comes
Before bright flashes, wind
That tosses trees around and breaks
Their limbs, and lightning,
Powerful enough to stop my heart.
Lord how I love a good soaking,
My face raised as if I had no more sense
Than a turkey.
Poem by Trina Gaynon
Trina Gaynon’s poems have recently appeared in Apple Valley Review, Mojave River Review, 45th Parallel, and the anthology Fire and Rain: Ecopoetry of California. Her chapbook The Alphabet of Romance is available at Finishing Line Press. She volunteered with afterschool tutoring, ESL literacy programs, and WriteGirl in California. Relocating to Oregon, she currently leads a group of poetry readers at the local Senior Studies Institute.
Some days I believe that every poem I write is in defiance of the silences that Tillie Olsen explored. Some days I am filled with the ego Richard Hugo described as “the next thing you put down belongs not for reasons of logic, good sense, or narrative development, but because you put it there.”