Watching Boston Harbor (a poem)

including a watercolor painting

To flee reality: I refuge in an elegance 
so fleeting — of the minor clouds 
that pause across the bay; 

Myself and waves 
around me wonder — 
how much more of “normalcy” remains? 

I have to take my pens, 
and break them in the fray.

To flee reality: ignore the reddest blood 
that we can shrug at. Their corruption 
could melt the ice away — 

The birds and I are refugees 
from what could be, 
if people won’t be brave — 

The clouds are watching us, across the massive bay. 

They wait for floods 
in shades of gray, that purple on the skyline, 
and all the glowing clouds absorb the lack of our remorse. 

My scarf becomes a shield against
the sea that rivals seaport;
This may go underwater soon,

and who's to say it won't?
I think, along the shoreline. I watch the blue horizon. 
The quiet clouds float endless gray, 
and bring themselves to harbor. 

To flee reality — I come 
to drape my scarf like waves 
around my shoulders, 
while I watch the sea, and winter of the sky; 

The graphs have burned 
alive across the headlines: 1.5 degrees, 
and numbers simply ricochet — like edges of the water. 

I stand beside the harbor, 
taking refuge in a peacefulness 
misleading; and the wintertime arrives — to blue the sky.

accompanying sketch to “Watching Boston Harbor” — watercolor and watercolor pencil; Jan 20th ‘24