The Drift

Moviegoers are dreaming in waves. If you’ve seen Nolan’s version of The Odyssey, you know what I mean. Even my non-English-teachery friends appreciate the remarkable storytelling and cinematography of the classic. The ocean scenes left me floating my way home.

It’s hard to deny the power of a homecoming story. As I get older, I’ve found it hard not to write about. Arriving home feels nearer and nearer as each life stage crashes against its shoreline.

Yes, I’d prefer my own homecoming to be a bit quieter that Odysseus’s, but I expect the waves. And the storms. Yet held within this small shell that I’ve been given, I’m okay with the long, slow drift.

Photo by Elisabeth Arnold on Unsplash

The Drift
Give me my scallop shell of quiet  . . . Walter Raleigh

Give me my scallop shell 
of quiet 

in the bottomed bed 
of forsaken seas 

between the ribs 
of oceaned will

the slow-flow 
of pilgrim swell—

do not shuck me 
from hallowed grooves 

of the salted, swept 
through my rift— 

when currents shift 
let me float 

this fan of fluted favor 
in wine-drunk drift, 

rested in the rippling
of aged rings,

their dawn-tinge dusk
draping the bend—

until my unhinged husk 
pipes its bubbled urge

and tides tarry, then surge 
to shell-grave shore—

and cracked wreckage
listens for the lure 

of trumpets— escorting
whispers of pearl.

This poem was first published in I Will Set a Place for You, a gorgeous poetry anthology handbound by Solid Food Press.

You may also find this poem in my own collection All the Untils.