flags, banners,

red magic markered white sheets

"Goodbye Clay, Love, Mary Beth, Gary and Sue"

"Come back soon Bobby! Joyce and Ronnie"

up and down the street

leading to Morehead Ports

out front a gray military destroyer

slinks into inlet

ready to pick up Clay and Bobby,

muscle, weapons,

fresh faced teenage fathers

a crowd leans

against the anchor fence,

arms holding high babies

icons of a life lived loved safely bordered

bunk beds and nurseries

these lean camouflaged men

hefting a hundred-pound pack upon their back

they have already gone

don’t look back

their cadence silently strutted

out past the anchor fence, up the ramp

behind the amphibious trucks

equally adept at land and sea

these boymen?

burnt faces, black sunglasses,

staring straight ahead

into the bowels of gray

this ship has no name, no number

I listen to the whirl of the generator

see the diesel smoke

hear the keening of women, babies

the ship ekes backward, turns

glides past grazing ponies

spartina grass, white ibises

unnoticed

By Guy Span

Douglas had a Reep-Bam - it started out slow
it happened first when the wind would blow.
The tin was thin on the roof, you see
and the wind would lift it, obnoxiously.
"Reep" said the tin on a stormy night
"Bam" said the tin when the wind got light.

And the wind would blow and the tin would go
and the Reep would sound like a mournful hound
and the wind would slow and the Bam let go -
with a tin-damned wham!
Reep-Bam, Reep-Bam, Reep-Bam-Bam!

Douglas’s Reep-Bam made him see red.
It made enough noise to wake the dead.
Reep-Bam, Reep-Bam all damn night;
scared all the chickens, put the pigeons to flight.

Well, there’s a moral to this story and the moral is clear.
If you’ve gotta a tin roof, you need a tin ear.
’Cause the din from the tin will drive you to drink
no matter what else you might think.
"Reep!" said the tin on a stormy night,
"Bam!" said the tin when the wind got light.

small twirling diving things,

rejoicing perpetually without effort

can it be the wounds of their hearts

waterflung, upon daybreak open?

they sing, these the mouths of holy beings

endangered for decades,

shot and poisoned,

they build nests

in abandoned airfields, forgotten landfills, "spoiled islands"

the tern, survivor’s canary, does not know

that all of our life hinges on her destiny

she brings us the white silk handkerchief of healing

from all we have tried to banish