The third day

low on the shore — crab cam
— rocks distinct in the early bright

a drape of sea lettuce — perfectly greened to please a child
and water gif-looped
like breathing // cold, clear and flowing
like our knowledge;  
the sky and the land
                        some Edenic afterthought.

Image: c/- Inala Nature Tours (of Bruny Island, Tasmania). With apologies to Elizabeth Bishop, At the Fishhouses. A quadrille (44 words) for Dverse, where De is hosting and asks us to look ‘skywards’.

And for a bit of meditative drift (with a Modern Country twang) here’s American guitarist William Tyler with some Highway Anxiety (it’s a pretty fabbo film too).

29 thoughts on “The third day”

  4. This line did it for me
    “a drape of sea lettuce”
    It’s brilliant in its description and gives a sense of casual beauty to the scene you’ve painted with your words. Like the simple act of breathing…and then you juxtapose it with those words “cold, clear, flowing” that to me, are so refreshing. Eden indeed.
    Would that our knowledge and the world’s humanity be so clear and flowing! 🙂

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  8. I was going to ask where is the crab, but the view is from a crab’s eyes. God is only incidental. I like that subtlety. Good music also. Reminds me of the music of the group, Friends of Dean Martinez.

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  9. How amazing that the prompt word ‘sky’ took you to the sea, Peter – you can’t have one without the other – and a crab cam, no less!. I especially love the ‘drape of sea lettuce — perfectly greened to please a child’, which appealed to my inner child. My favourite phrase is ‘water gif-looped like breathing’.

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  12. Hi Peter! This is something I need to share with my fellow writers here at dVerse. I so enjoy reading the work that you create and post, and am genuinely honored to be embraced as a part of this community of poets. May we all find healing in these challenging times. And as a true aquarian love child, and also a proud flower child of the 60’s, who truly believed then we would some day change the world to be a better place for all, and still believes that we might yet do it — I wish each of you peace, health, and love. Write on!

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  13. I love the view, so calm. And as others have pointed out, these word descriptions just described the scene:

    a drape of sea lettuce — perfectly greened to please a child
    and water gif-looped (very unique word pairing)

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  14. I do love this, and the ending is wonderful, “cold, clear and flowing
    like our knowledge;
    the sky and the land
    some Edenic afterthought.” Thanks for introducing me to a new musician, and the 20 seconds of peace in that video are the perfect gift!

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  19. I like that subtle and very clever sentence break, dividing knowledge from the natural world and Eden. We know that knowledge had no place there.
    Aside from that, the rhythm of the water is so soothing.

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