| When
I first came to Florida, we had a boat. Every now and then we would take
it out into the river, hitch a line to it, and water ski, hydro slide, or
just idle through the mangrove cays. A very few times, we took the boat
out onto the ocean, set out the trolling lines, and just cruised, taking
in all the sights, sounds, and motions of a summer gulf stream day.
Once, I even fed a porpoise from the bow, as it raced alongside us and
leapt into the air, catching the ballyhoo I held above the water for it,
never thinking the porpoise would actually see it, much less leap for
it. I saw sea turtles and manta rays, flying fish and tiger
sharks...everything I had read about as a shy farm boy in Indiana.
I remember I was in my
AP English class when I first was told that water often is used as a
symbol of life. Later, I stumbled onto ee cummings and he talked about
what IS and what is NOT, and he taught me what YES! could mean if I only
could be so lucky (or perhaps just perceptive enough to notice).
In Biology and Chemistry, I was learning about the primordial
soup...life seemed to be precipitants of chemicals reacting in the
water. My thoughts, I realized, were also reacting bits of dilute matter
in a largely unprecipitated universe. I began to stir the mix giving
life to the poems which precipitated. |
