Low Tide

sunrise

mulholland light

Low Tide

On Winslow Homer’s Fisher Girl, 1894

Watching her watching, doesn’t she seem to see more than the sea,

Casting off beneath the fog where all the underwater aliveness goes  

About on it's own living without needing her  –  doesn’t it really seem

Like this?  And too, what mother’s do, who bring in their daughters

And sons back from the rocks before the clouds really settle in

For good, before the rain that’s being forecast in the gray that's

Being leeched from tiny tide pools teeming with new minnows

And some, bless her, blood of the middle daughter’s thumb

Where the crab pinched and drew?  I could look at Winslow Homer’s

Fisher Girl for the rest of my life and want her to be my mother.

Steady nets and shells, a good set of reliable floats.  She’s watching.

She’s letting go, sure, but she’s watching.  And she'll expect me

To come back to shore, she'll want me to.  And with a mother

Like her, I’d want to do just that.  After the storm passes.  After

The kelp beds settle, and the algae, and there’s a momentary calm.