Victor Emanuel
at every compass point
fog gauzes horizons
northward Egg Rocks
sulking stone rookeries
westward bay’s edges
southward open water
thousands of miles only
sea its many mysteries
eastward Monhegan Island
somewhere mist growing
thicker we sail deeper
our bow quickly scatters
delicate-legged storm-petrels
rafting in gentle seas
dancing across waters
separated into oblique
gray-green sea foam
levitating wings arced
facing vertical wind gradients
above wavelets they patter
surface film foraging food
plankton tiny crustaceans
fishing boats chummed detritus
white-patched rumps flashing
undertails as they skim
skitter in every direction
dark wing points meeting water
they disappear into fog
reappearing in different places
to dance again disappear again
Gorky called them streaks of black
lightning soaring proud free
over gray sea plains
gregarious pelagic tempest
messengers shunning land
preferring migrating life
soon they depart these waters
returning south nesting rocks
Tierra del Fuego & South Georgia
distant antarctic climes
as lifting fog dissolves
channel buoys clang & moan
gull screech & cackle announcing
slow approach to Monhegan
Duck Rocks & Smutty Nose reveal
shadowy waterlines to starboard
to port darkening shores hint
early morning sun reveals
storm-petrels disappearing
taking little interest in landfalls
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