it makes perfect sense if you look at her hair first

At the Harbor by Judith Clay

.

what they found out way too late was
that her strength was in her hair,
same as Samson–

all the talking with the wild, de-toured
traffic lights on unstriped roads, &
to the wrinkled lady with a pearl bead,
mirroring the sea

“oh–“, she says (abstractedly),
“we place things somewhere,
almost as if they belonged,
set ’em in relation to a mosaic of waves,
but then misinterpret sometimes”

in a low voice,
merely
to herself, she says, “i Think of Words–
hold ’em– not too tight though, feel ’em breathe,
inDeepSea scent, study their movements, some
are little labyrinths or— “(this is
when she smiles, cheeks aglow)

& while she’s focused on the sea,
her hair talks to the crows, the fox, the wind &
drinks the stormrain
with red-lambent tongue,

“what about the fish?” they ask

“he’s all this–” she says,
as if this answered all the questions
(& it does)

a ship blows a mighty whistle

“you’re too small for me” she says,
looking at its green flags, swaying in the breeze,
“–too small for all the letters that i bear,
wrapped in my chest”,

& with a little white hand waves ’til out of sight,
’til all the passengers are small as needle pins,
then, (with a swift move) strips her coat towards the wind

& all the stories, waiting

.

i couldn’t resist, doing a second poem to the wonderful artwork by judith clay
find more of her paintings and more words, inspired by her paintings over at dVerse..