MARCH AT FALL RIVER

Taking a story book
created into song for flute
and chorus
composed at school
for my aunt and niece
along with an eclair
ripened fruit, cheese
a honeyed croissant and java
we had deliver along the banks
of Fall River
with a please and thanks
for a blue ink cloudless sky
in the cool air
as the wind rises off the water
at my once anchored kayak
is now ready to float
searing by the sunny ocean docks
we paddle away at an early hour
by the silent warm dew and rocks
cradled at the shore's back
by tiny crocus, wild flowers
and muddy roots of phlox
praying to get out to help
the invading embraces
of a Siamese cat
now caught by the branches
at a dawn's mirage after a storm
in this obstacle course at sea
drinking in a boiling brew
from being thirsty
in our phantom banquet
as we put the cat on our knee
I'm asking for a napkin
when my eyes are with allergy
in a nature's whirlwind abyss
while asking my laughing company
to take a camera's snapshot
needing a miracle's graces
with no curfew at supernatural powers
to wake me up new
in a half baked sun and view a series
of red painted leaves
sinking under the Bay
on the open boat sea
thinking of lotus blossoms
in a still-cloud painting of Monet,
now with the clocks pulled ahead
by one feverish hour to share
our bread along the bent river bed
on this wonderful reunion
preparing our clear padded shades
over the sludge by weighty docks
of once carnivorous blue fish
gathered by rusk rations of bread
unloaded from Portuguese sailors
we wish for nothing less
than a reflection of Poseidon
dressed in street clothes
for our protection over the seas
which only a fortnight ago
had ice-cold deaf leaves here
among the Evergreen trees,
and ask the masked god of deities
to be with a chorus of nymphs
among the garden snakeskin
while a blackbird flies by our hair
as if I'm in the brightened Himalaya
with radiant Phoebus riding on air
shines as an only a next of kin
I'm offering my family a vibrating line
in a text enlightened from Baudelaire
among these entrails and flying birds
yet trying to answer all mysteries
as butterflies obliviously float
over the occasional sludge
and yet we see a right whale
on our right side by chance
knowing only poetry has an answer
to the daughter and son of Melville
who wishes to decide a cadence
and summon up the visionary Muse
who is clever enough
not to lose a grudge
yet fulfills our questionable words.