Weather eye

Weather-Eye _______________________________________________

! ! Drawings and Paintings by James Vanderberg ! ! Poems by Peter Vanderberg

Weather-Eye

! Weather-Eye ! _________________________________________________________________

! ! ! ! ! Drawings and Paintings by James Vanderberg ! ! ! ! ! Poems by Peter Vanderberg

Ghostbird PressLynbrook, NY

! First Edition.

Artist’s Preface, all drawings and paintings are copyright © 2011 James Vanderberg. Writer’s Preface, How to Tie a Bowline illustration and all poems are copyright © 2011 Peter Vanderberg. All rights reserved. No material herein may be reproduced in any way without prior written consent of the owner, except for critical reviews.

! Printed in the United States of America ! Printer: Christony, Inc., Wantagh, NY.

ISBN 978-0-615-51976-0

Cover: Ocean Sketch, watercolor on paper, 5 x 8 inches.Frontispiece: Ocean 1, watercolor and pencil on paper, 10 x 10 inches.

For information on this and other books by Ghostbird Press, visit: www.ghostbirdpress.org

http://www.ghostbirdpress.blogspot.com

http://www.ghostbirdpress.blogspot.com

Contents!! Writer’s Preface! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ix! Artist’s Preface!! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! xi! Acknowledgements! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! xiv! Special Thanks! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! xv

Bay

! ! At the Four-Corners, gouache on handmade paper, 11 x 14 inches! ! ! ! ! xviii! ! Seaweed 1, watercolor on paper, 9 x 7 inches! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! 2! ! Seaweed 2, watercolor on paper, 9 x 7 inches! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! 3! Cormorant! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! 4! The Dead End! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! 5! South Wind! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! 6! ! Garbage Cove, gouache on paper, 10 x 10 inches!! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! 7! ! Untitled (Reeds), ink on paper, 12 x 12 inches! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! 8! ! Untitled (Reeds 2), ink on paper, 12 x 12 inches! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! 9! ! Rigging, ink on paper, 12 x 12 inches ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! 10! Rigging! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! 11! Hemlock Cove! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! 12! ! Hemlock Cove, pencil on paper, 10 x 10 inches! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! 13! Terns! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! 14! ! Terns, ink on paper, 10 x 10 inches! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! 15! ! Barnacle, gouache on paper, 10 x 10 inches !! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! 16! Barnacle! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! 17! Dragonfly ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! 18! ! Oyster 1, watercolor on paper, 9 x 7 inches! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! 19! ! Oyster 2, watercolor on paper, 9 x 7 inches! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! 20! Oyster! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! 21! Cedar Island! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! 22

v

! ! Anchor, gouache on paper, 10 x 10 inches ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! 23! ! Blue Point, gouache on paper, 10 x 10 inches ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! 24! Between Winds ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! 25! ! Red Moon, gouache on paper, 11 x 14 inches! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! 26! Red Moon! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! 27

Ocean

! ! Waves Waves Waves, gouache on handmade paper, 14 x 11 inches! ! ! ! ! 28! Of Water! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! 30! ! Of Water, watercolor on paper, 9 x 7 inches! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! 31! ! Riptide, watercolor and pencil on paper, 10 x 10 inches !! ! ! ! ! ! ! 32! Riptide!! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! 33! ! Ocean 2, watercolor and pencil on paper, 10 x 10 inches ! ! ! ! ! ! ! 34! Garbage Cove ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! 35! Tide Chart! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! 36! ! Tide Chart, gouache on paper, 10 x 10 inches! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! 37! ! Orient Points, ink on paper, 12 x 12 inches! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! 38! Orient Points! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! 39! Epiphany! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! 40! ! Epiphany, ink on paper, 12 x 12 inches! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! 41! ! Barrier Beach, watercolor on handmade paper, 5 x 7 inches !! ! ! ! ! ! 42! Ocean Parkway! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! 43! Horizon Lines! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! 44! ! Ocean Side, watercolor on paper, 9 x 7 inches! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! 45

Lines & Ropes

! ! Priest Cord, gouache on paper, 10 x 10 inches! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! 46! ! Splice, gouache on paper, 10 x 10 inches! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! 48! Splice! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! 49! Tangle !! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! 50! ! Tangle, ink on paper, 12 x 12 inches!! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! 51

vi

! Bight! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! 52! ! Bight, gouache on paper, 10 x 10 inches!! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! 53! ! Through Light and Water, gouache on paper, 10 x 10 inches! ! ! ! ! ! ! 54! Rope ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! 55! Unknot!! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! 56! ! Unknot, ink on paper, 8.5 x 11! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! 57! ! Undertow, ink on paper, 12 x 12 inches! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! 58! Line! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! 59! ! Life Line, ink on paper, 12 x 12 inches! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! 60! Unknot!! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! 61! Trefoil ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! 62! ! Untitled (Netting), ink on paper, 12 x 12 inches! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! 63! ! Coil, ink on paper, 12 x 12 inches! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! 64! ! Monkey’s Fist, ink on paper, 12 x 12 inches! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! 65! ! Rope, ink on paper, 12 x 12 inches! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! 66! Line! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! 67! Lines & Ropes! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! 68! ! Untitled (Tangle), ink on paper, 12 x 12 inches! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! 69!

Bearings

! ! Untitled (Lines), ink on paper, 12 x 12 inches! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! 70! Source List! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! 72! How to Tie a Bowline! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! 76! ! Bowline, gouache on paper, 10 x 10 inches! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! 77

vii

Writerʼs Preface

The term weather-eye refers to the watch sailors keep on sea and sky for the cues that indicate a coming change in weather. The water, wind, clouds and even wildlife all give signals that tell what is to come. My father always warns us to keep a weather-eye as we prepare to go out on the boat. My brother and I have taken his advice on the water and now as the title of this collaborative project.

This project was developed in collaboration with my brother James, a visual artist. We began by working autonomously, while creating from similar experiences and source material. Later, I looked directly to his drawings and paintings for inspiration and wrote poems for specific works. He, in turn, did the same for certain poems I had written which grabbed his eye. The drawings, paintings and poems collected here exist as independent views and voices that work in chorus.

Initially, my way into this project was through practicing haiku. Poems were drafted on days aboard Sea Mist, our father’s sailboat, and at the beach, or while remembering past seasons on the bay and ocean. Collecting spare, clear images while reflecting on my personal relationship to them, allowed the poems to develop naturally, as a kind of poetic note taking.

Later, my poems grew into sonnets. This structure provided me with both the ground and flexibility to enter my subject with no certain result in mind, but with a guide for discovering what the waters of Long Island might have to teach me. I considered the tradition and rules of the form but only held steadfast to the fourteen-line standard and the sense of discovery that the sonnet creates. I was, in fact, discovering again my native shores and the part of me that resides there.

ix

These poems are my way of looking more carefully at the signs that the familiar coast and waters of Long Island reveal. They are a reach toward deeper understandings of the land-seascape of the Great South Bay and its influence on my life and work.

I don’t pretend that these poems compose a full portrait of the Great South Bay and Atlantic or of myself. In fact, I don’t think that is ultimately possible, or even desirable. But this work has enabled me to see this place and its inhabitants, of which I am one, more clearly. Writing these poems and looking at my brother’s art has helped me to more fully inhabit my own waterways and coastlines. ! ! ! ! ! !

Peter VanderbergAugust, 2011

x

Artistʼs Preface

In summer of 2009 my father taught me the bowline knot, which, according to him, is good for rescue and holds on the ship. It’s one basic knot you should know. I referred to the rope we were using as exactly that, a rope. My father then corrected me saying that a rope on shore is a rope, but on a ship it is a line. An object in context can change it’s meaning. He also told me that a knot is designed to hold tight, but come undone when needed, whereas a tangle is unpredictable and untrustworthy.

xi

Knot, Line, Rope, Tangle.

These concepts began to take shape as I considered my own work, which is rooted in drawing, line and the abstract space, created within these combinations and relationships. I began to reconsider the rope as a line, and the line as a drawn line, a sculptural representation of marks on a page. It is unique and functional by design, but also relevant in context. It has its contrast, the tangle or unknot, which is abstract and unpredictable. It became the starting point for this project, and many subsequent works.

This project began as a search for source material. My brother and I made a list of terms, locations and ideas that for us encompassed the landscape of the Great South Bay, and began to work from it. I made drawings and paintings and Peter began writing poetry. As the body of work grew we began taking inspiration directly from each other's artwork. But even pieces we had made autonomously often found counterpoints in our respective arts. We were

collaborating and sharing ideas without even knowing it.

The drawings, watercolors and paintings on paper that I made for this project were created with the feeling of a sketch or page from a workbook. I consider them all “finished” works, but I wanted to create the feeling that these were made on-site in an exploratory way.

What began as a search for source material, evolved into a deeper reflection on my home and my upbringing on the waterways of Long Island. The remarkable thing about this project is that in this search I was able to rediscover a landscape that was so familiar to me previously. The smells, sights and feelings of these places combined with names and stories taught to me by my father, remain constant and yet new and extraordinary at the same time.

xii

This project is in no way a full account or an end to my discovery of the Great South Bay, rather I take it as a first step towards an understanding. As I sound the waters of that place for an answer to questions of self and place, I find that I get less of a concrete return and more of a reflection. Like light through water, the answers are inconclusive, beautiful and tangled.

James VanderbergAugust, 2011

xiii

Acknowledgements

Sincere thanks to the editors of the these journals where the following poems were first published, sometimes in slightly different versions.

! “Bight”: Ozone Park Journal

! “Epiphany”: Hunger Mountain

! “Horseshoe Crab” (haiku from “Garbage Cove”): Roadrunner

! “Splice”: Cratelit

xiv

Special Thanks

Our deep gratitude to everyone who supported the creation of this book, and especially to the following individuals whose generous sponsorship helped make the publication of this book possible:

! Christine and Thomas Vanderberg! ! ! Carmela Gandolfo

! ! ! Serena and Ron Guerrette

Kathy and John Nichtern! ! !! ! ! ! ! ! ! Elizabeth Heskin and John Reid Currie! ! ! ! !! ! ! ! Allyson and William Kiernan

! ! Kristen and John Johnson! ! !! ! ! Wells House Bed and Breakfast, Greenport, Long Island!

! Alissa Crouse and Tom Crawford

! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! Joanne and Fred Gandolfo

! Ashley Hefner! ! ! ! ! ! !! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! Laura and Mike Polizzi

xv

For John Gandolfo(1926 − 2011)

xvii

Bay

1

Cormorant

! 1Resting with a seagull on the No Wake sign like two Greeks on a park bench: knowing in the same direction, wise past differences.

! 2Surfacing, silhouettefisher takes flight low across Amityville Cut –I’ve never heard its call.

! 3I hand-shovel deep into the dark sands of my youngest summers to where the ocean springs & not one cormorant will loose its shadow-self over my bay. Is the bird new to these waters or am I?Silent wings, teach me to listen.

4

The Dead End

waits for a fight in the house to boil over or a sudden awareness of the weight we have granted time.

She will trickle down the street to the end, where the bay begins, for a long lookout over barrier beaches & distant gullsscripting our nights on the mindless violet sky.

I once found a hacklehead fish trapped in a beer bottle. The bottom-feeder must have entered youngenough to move between its glass home

& the tidal rocks at Braham Avenue’s end.I, like the fish, have grown into my world.

5

South Wind

Pushes our blood scent clear: flies harass only on the bay. Run through the reed path ocean bound, bounding down dunes. Muffled crush of waves greet our burnt feet & we can stand still: no green-flies, wind off the Atlantic keeps them back or calms,maybe quells blood hungry things.

The late afternoon brings North Windfrom our dock on the last gasps of August& the frustrated cries of cicadas −we sail the hot wind swatting the golden eyesof green-flies hot for our veins, guessing our wayover shallows on the ebb tide.

6

Rigging

A dragonflyclinging to the mainsheet,

glistens as the wind seeks equilibrium.

The rigging, its new tongue,bends a gospel I never understand.

Cardinals in the Japanese Pinesgive the morning’s homily

while seagulls respond like old hinges opening

& closing the day’s door.

Alone on the bay I griptiller & mainsheet,

navigating invisible forces.

11

Hemlock Cove

Barely a ripple down Measured Mile allows the sound of a heron’s wings! ! or is it a snowy egret?

Gray gull broken on the beach

ship’s hulldown on the horizon

Sand in my mouth –laughing gulls retreatthen advance, closer

! ! Plovers scramble above their eggs, pipe & dive my eyes

Sailing Amity Cut: common terns glide uncommonly close

! ! ! ! Monk parrots eulogize their native sunset!

Old Sol fans & folds her tattered wings

12

Terns

Each high pitched key-earn, key-earn holds its echo in the throat.

They glide as I walk: wanting to veer,

dive & dart away.

The terns are fishing blades of wet light −

killies & young snapper.

Sea birds escortour sail’s motorless breath.

Or do they warn usaway from their reed nests?

Tern flight becomes gestural strokes:

devouring what the bay offers reluctantly.

14

Barnacle

! ~*~Every spring we scrapecolonies from Sea Mist’s hull:winter-dead sailors that shadowed us all last summer.

! ~*~A feathered-foot reaches from each shell mountain, kicking bay algae & unfortunateplankton into its mouth.

! ~*~Darwin studied these hermaphroditesfor eight years before his Origin of Species.If barnacles could prick him to question God, how deep will they cut me?

! ~*~Now I am blurring on the surgeon’s table;now the scalpel & my flesh parts like a sea.

17

Dragonfly

The 1952 Encyclopedia Brittanica names you Green Darner.

Harmless in hand with eyes of a thousand jeweled facets.

What pleasures of observation & awethe Cold War entomologist must have known:watching the nymph emerge, slowly from its husk to grasp the reed until its wingswere dry & steady. Young dragon waiting with sciencefor flight while the rest of the world waited,like I do now, for the next crisis.

Yesterday, a country to the north bombed a country to the south.

Every morning I scan the news for news of wars.

Some afternoons I read through old encyclopedias, calmed by the relevance of old news: good news.

The dragonflies are molting again.

18

Oyster

The oysterman’s boat we boarded in Mattituck to take a dozen each was crewed by two brothers & their wives laughing in folding chairs. They drank North Fork blush & made us feel welcometo what their men had found in Peconic Bay. The older showed us to drill with the oyster-knifeuntil the shell gives up, then drop in to slice the adductor muscle. The animal surrenders,

exhales & lives all the way down my throat. I kept the shells, seemed they might have something more to yield. Maybe the lives I swallowed − their purpose was to draw those lines, one per year in the Sanskrit of Peconic tides.

21

Cedar Island

Wind shift at the mouthof Fox Creek turns our heading.We throw anchor − wade ashore.! ! ~~~Hiking bay dunes for the first time,having past them for years our work is clear:use both hands, all eyes & know this place −atop dunes, look north at our Island again.! ! ~~~Down along the shore we talkabout oysters & vineyards & sculptingthe elemental: casting crabsin bronze as I would cast our day.! ! ~~~South Wind up raises whitecaps.Sea Mist tugs at her chain & the mainsheet tolls morning on the hollow mast.

22

! ! Between Winds

Mid-morning’s South Wind shifts between directions of being borne. My boat loses its way, drifts & the sails luff in the bay’s indecision. A spirit now, I see more. Beneath the surface a crab swims sideways between my hull & its shadow. The lapping of a slight wake manifests my presence as more than mere mind. I dissolve into sun-glare, fleeting radiance that I know only peripherally.

The wind-bird spins for its source like a lost child.

I give up, take what is offered & watch for signs. Considering my course from off-course, I wait in taut awareness for the ripples of a growing breeze to overtake my boat & turn it. I take in the main sail, correct the tiller & move on with my life, forgetting almost instantly the one I longed for between winds.

25

Red Moon

rising over the bay nowquiet as our decisions to make better lives despite: to spite impermanence – rise, it is for you to bloom white,for us to guess what you sign:one red eye with laugh lines,& a fading smile. It’s not enough

to say what we will do under favorable skies. Risered moon, mosquitoes whine, plovers pipe, crickets chirp& past barrier beaches the hush-ohhh-hush of the ocean sends us home.

27

Ocean

29

Of Water

I am drawn into a painting of water: an abstraction which is to say universal torque: wavelength refracted.

I am drawn & held & must work hard to form thoughts − this is meditation: movement & layered reflections of water:saint of impermanence. Speech

bounds the borderless. I write a door to frame emptiness. There: passage to another emptiness.I’ve decided I won’t unravel on the Northern Parkway.

Mine will be a death of water − as love: yielding to the myth of cycles. When life fractures I sleepin dreams of water.

30

Riptide

I smile at my son running to the ocean:witch I never trusted. She takes him& plays nice, but I see her swellsout past the false shallows of sand bars.He won’t look back − but I watch,feet planted in the sand, one fist on the hipthat bore him, another shading my eyes −There now: the panic I’ve been waiting for.___________________________________________

I don’t seem to be getting anywhere −hands like a riverboat’s wheel, butterfly kicks wild.

Tired now, she has me, has deep-green plans.Eyes try to breathe, mouth like a fish out

of water. Mine will be a death of water. _____________________________________

Head up - parallel shore - stay calm.

33

Garbage Cove

Sun-blackened seaweed − woven − chains of whelk

Two-faced driftwood :elephant – crocodile: drilled with barnacle tombs

Mermaid’s purse pours quartz & iron from its birth-tear

Horseshoe crab ! ! ! eyes! ! angry as glaciers

Razor clams shave foam from the surf-line

Roots make the best driftwood :: driftroot :: drowned tendrils that seek sand

Oyster shell L-bent to draw algae through its lips ! blue-gray as a storm-past sea

! ! (ocean echoes through the chambers of a moon snail)

Scattered beer cans & corn husks; somewhere an island of garbage swirls miles wide

Stainless diver’s knife, pervious to salt, sand, time

Kindling Christmas tree, planted & trimmed with a torn towel, toy shovel, toilet seat

Lobsterman’s buoy: proven knots parted: duct-taped through another season

Choose one to carry home, to turn in your mind’s hand, to trace with the fingersof narrative. These are stories drawn by tide lines, ship’s wake & wind.

35

Tide Chart

I stopped trying to understandDad’s long looks out to sea from behindtinted Ray-Ban glasses, his long walks east along the tide line. I had long stoppedlooking to the horizon myself.Wouldn’t make it to Cedar Beachbut ran up into the quiet dunes wherecrickets called from razor grass & dragonflies alighted in silence.

After self-exile, I drifted like a duneslowly back to blankets through debrisstrewn by the last storm tide: beach glass,parted lines, razor clams & hollow fish: offeringsto the unflinching eye atop Fire Island Light.

36

Orient Points

After summers watching Dad use his pocket-knife on sticks & cans he gave me one with a rule: it’s a tool, not a toy. I lost it at the beach before school started.

Three-thousand years ago, the Algonquin of Orient buried their dead with spear-points shaped like fish − necessary for safe passage to another life.

They would circle the cleaned bones & stone fish with red ochre & oyster shells. Clay pots were killed & throwninto the pyre so the dead could carry water. Their afterlife was wild & unpredictable. Only trusted tools were burnt through red-circle gates.

I write this now: bury me with a pocket-knife on Cedar Island’s high-grounds facing the Atlantic. Circle my grave with oyster shells.

39

Epiphany

Two weeks after Christmas, my fathercarefully takes down the tree alone.On the second Sunday, in quietmorning he begins with painted glass,then the angels, fish, stars –Finally the lights go out & away.Until afternoon the tree stands as oncein its wood: dark sage free of memory,

but now a rootless symbol only.We drive out to Garbage Cove & leave the tree to be buried under dunes by the wind.Looking out over the sea’s winter froth, I find emptiness as the en-trance to a second noel.

40

Ocean Parkway

If the ocean is my fatherthen the bay is my mother.The ocean calls me away,whispers its lessons & lamentson each crest against sand.Even when I am away, the windsays, north, south, east, west,we all return to the sea.

The cove is her arms always reaching,her love a wind holding storm horizons clear to the south.Reeds, cicadas & egretssing her lullaby: a hymnthat binds wake & sleep with dreaming.

43

Horizon Lines

Unmask every self between frothing ! ! ! ! breakers & the constant horizon line.

Never give up on the look-out. No matter ! ! ! ! how the ocean’s breath erases your horizon line.

After a day missing home more than most ! ! ! ! imagine she waits just over the horizon line.

Midnight watch: accusing red moon −! ! ! ! I stumble over hand-sewn horizon lines.

Sailors look-out for home all night; everyday! ! ! ! scanning for gulls on the horizon line.

When the ship’s roll & rise is too much,! ! ! ! calm your stare on the steady horizon line.

Line-of-sight radius broken by the curve of known ! ! ! ! distances: O tenuous promise, O horizon line.

44

Lines & Ropes

47

Splice

Father with three sons in a sailboat,minds’ eyes in four directions until drawn in to a rope turned line by his word & the bay beneath us.

Difference between a knot & tangle is the knot will hold & easily untie. Tangles can't be trusted or undone. He began to work the line. You should know

the bowline. I watched, waiting my turn, his son turned father turned son. One gesture loops while threadingthe free-end, like a card trick.

We all test the knot, eager to learn something useful, something that proves itself, that lasts.

49

Tangle

Can’t be trusted but invites fingers like a riddle: work it out, draw a clean coil from the nest.

I don't remember Fox Creek – maybe on purpose. Standing on the bow holding the jib-stay, I search the mouth of Fox Creek for native knowledge of this place. Dad took me this way years ago the day before summer ended. Not true – two memories tangle: Fox Creek, entering

one late morning & navigating Snake Channel at dusk. Unlike lines, minds never untangle the signatures of parallel days. Late afternoon, alone in a room learning leaves as a plane drones overhead, soaks into the light on the living room wall & wake opening behind the Red Boat.

50

Bight

Curve of coast; loop in a line.The language of water always has two meanings:

One soft: my daughter holding the main sheet;my son pushing the tiller back & forth. The sailboat on light wind tolerates their energies.

One hard: way to handle wind, meaning way to handle God.New on my first ship I was told never to trust a bight – will cut a grown man in half, meaning, imagine what it’d do to you.

Sailing past the Boat Graveyard with my father on the tiller I have leisure to look at the half-sunk hulls grown through with reeds, the osprey display his crab atop a channel marker.

There are always two meanings: life & death – god that we name twice because we have two identities & neither understands the other.

52

Rope

! ! ! We madly gather the honey of the visible, in order ! ! ! to accumulate it in the grand golden hive of the invisible.! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! – Rilke! ! !Realizing that the woven ropes of light are not on the water but through, crossing over bay-snails & a crab, I confusetime lines. Do I skim the surfaceof the present or tread waters of a past I have yet to remember?

My friend speaks to the same effect of light: we are the bees of the invisible.

He stares deeper into the bay: I am the crab, he adds, divided – looking through the water & back.

Slipping under silhouette philosophies we are saved by a cormorant surfacing.

55

Unknot

Teach your hands to know the knot, because you'll forget. My father has said this before. We both take a line. A bowline can rescue if slung under the arms, knot against spine. I already feel this one slipping. My hands become my father's hands, learning to make something useful, effortless. He cautions:Sons learn mostly when you aren’t teaching. He's been disappointed in my forgetting.

Standing-end holds fast, the free-end makes a loop. An old course around the tree & down the hole butthose spells conjure a self I’d like to forget. Yesterday ever recedes & I have made him a grandfather. Practicethis knot around door knobs, chair legs, your own arm.My hands will learn when my son isn’t looking.

56

Line

Between North & South WindsI asked my father how my age was for him.

We untangle our past: 1984 – I was seven, he was fixing the house weekends & after work.

Wish I realized how fast the days pass.!At fifty-five my father joined the Coast Guard Auxiliary. He practiced his knots while waiting for the 7:03 to Penn Station, sitting in his car, tying rope around the wheel, exhaust rising around him as the pre-dawn sky blued over the elevated tracks.

I know how fast days pass but it doesn’t help.Keep a weather-eye. Live parallel days.

59

Unknot

Over the knifed-up wood table & our empty pints my friend says, what I am

learning from my fatherin the hospital is enough & what I know as a son

is too much. He is grateful to have no child to teach the patterns of absence.

If I had to bear what a son learns of his father by being a fatherwhile my child watched me for answers –

He stops, knowing he is tangled. Knowing he can't hold, but won't be undone.

61

Trefoil

Once there were three brothers on a boat…

The youngest unraveled to the bow,uncoiled his thoughts in the sun &flirted with full-bosomed mermaids.

The middle brother practiced his knots.But the line only laughed, unknottingitself. He talked about the art of confusion& passed a tangle to the oldest.

Around the standing part & back through the loop. Father’s words tiedto the boat’s life-line but this brotherwas bound to forget. He spent

the rest of the day making his own netwhile his brothers drank the ocean.

62

Line

If it was still light out when my father got home he would want a row. I’d watch

the oars pop out of the water & reach back, ripple arcs opening across the canal.

Every few pulls he looked over his shoulder: Lem’me know if we’re gonna hit anything.I don’t remember us talking otherwise.

The oar locks creaked under each ellipse. His knuckles to me – away –

to me – away.

He narrowed his eyes at backyards along the canal, sailboats, my sightings.

Always the feeling that something I wasn’t ready for approached – moved away.

67

Lines & Ropes

Line: ! position in life; rope at sea.

Sailboat on blocks in the backyard:Dad reminds me how to make circles of wax & how to wipe them away.These patterns wear on both our shoulders.Someday his boat lessons will be mine to give.His pain will be mine. I’ll keep his silences.

Knot: ! hard cross-grain of wood where a branch grows;! interlace & looping of line / rope to bind.!! I remember once being caught in a riptide:! Dad standing on shore, watching, waiting! for me to remember what he said:! Head up, parallel shore. Stay calm.

Rope: ! to lure with deception; reinforce; line on land.

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Bearings

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Source List!

! AAmityville Cut: hard tacking south − steady downwind run home. anchor: always cleat the free end before throwing.Atlantic Ocean: we are drowned & reborn here every September.

! Bbarnacle: marine crustacean that affixes to hulls, rocks, docks, etc. for life.bay snail: collect as shadows in the bay-bottom lows.beach glass: children’s coins, opaque with ocean vision.beach grass: tall grasses of the dunes.buoy: red on your right when returning from sea.

! CCedar Beach: the longest walks go there. channel: deep water in all tides.cormorant: what else has been overlooked all these years?

! Ddragonfly: a good sign; stills everyone in sight.driftwood: sea polished & sun dried for fire or furnishings or to write on the sand.dunes: sand hills that hold back the sea; slipping, shifting; where we bury our trees.

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! Eegret: white solitary bird, often confused with other white solitary birds.eel grass: briny entanglements that rise from the bottom like old regrets.

! FFire Island: National Seashore; beware of ticks. Ferry to Sailor’s Haven.Fox Creek: a long, good way to Hemlock Cove.

! GGarbage Cove: too many trucks on the weekend. Gilgo Beach: pay for a slip; good snack shack. greenfly: on a South Wind, stay ocean; North Wind stay bay.

! HHemlock Cove: clam beds found in the western shallows.hermit crab: hold still & they emerge from their periwinkle.heron: often confused with the egret. Rare − a good sign.high / low tide: keep track or risk beaching the boat.horizon line: standing on the high-tide mark it lies about five miles out.horseshoe crab: three hundred million years old with medicinal blood.

! JJapanese Pine: grow wild in Japan & at Hemlock Cove.

! Kkillies: bait fish.

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! Llaughing gull: will take a hot dog right out of your hand. Friend on the other side of the world.lighthouse: the pass of its eye marks a radius of doubt.lion's mane: late summer passive hunter stings even in death.

! Mmast: rises every year as if it was the first time.measured mile: a nautical mile, marked west of Gilgo Beach.mermaid's purse: sea ray eggs used by mermaids to carry sand dollars.Monk Parrot: imported & escaped from the airport. Now living on the bay.moon snail: white & round as the full moon.

! NNo Wake!: in the area of marinas & harbors; as curtesy to boats in trouble.

! Ooar: reliable propulsion. Always have one on the boat.Ocean Parkway: cross carefully on the way to or from the ocean.Old Sol: when the sun touches the horizon take account of your day.osprey: good fisher, good sign to see one on the bay.oyster: dark, rock-like shell encloses sweet, vulnerable meat. Tastes like the sea itself.

! Ppiping plover: protected nesting areas; fearless even of a man holding a stick.

!

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! Rrazor clam: pirates used these to shave before coming ashore to town.Red Boat: 1964 Aristocraft Funliner known locally as the Red Baron.reeds: tall grasses of the flats.riptide: caused by the ebb & flow of the surf; swim parallel to escape its pull.Robert Moses Bridge: marks the eastern edge of our range.

! Ssailboat: 1985 O’Day 192 named Sea Mist.shoal: waters too shallow to safely navigate.Snake Channel: winding way through the flats west of Amityville Cut. snappers: small fish that jump when the bay is calm.Squaw Island: just north of Snake Channel, best spot for clamming.

! Ttern: tell-tale forked tail. tide mark: line of algae & dark wood at the normal high tide.Toomey's: old bar & burger place on Narraskatuck Creek.!

! Uunknot: in the mathematical theory of knots, the identity element; to untie a knot.

! Wweather-eye: keep watch on the wind & sky.whelk egg chain: spiral of egg disks that wash ashore.

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How to Tie a Bowline

Lay the free end over the stand

Around the back and down the bight

Twist them both with one hand

Pull both ends to make it tight

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Weather eye

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