Pemaquid Point And After

Be forewarned, parts of this poem are not kid-friendly.  I struggled with including this poem because of its intimate nature. But if I am going to be true to this project, I realize I have to be true to all of my writings that are important to me.  Now is not the time for censorship.  Hopefully no one will be offended, least of all the (it-should-be-obvious) subject. This poem was written on December 27, 1980.  The previous Summer (I think), Dawn, her mother and I had gone down to Pemaquid
overnight and I had wandered off after dinner to the sea edge. 

In the original poem, I dove off the cliffs into the sea, but I have changed it.  I think it is more telling that the character isn't brave, or foolish, enough to risk his life;  that he pulls back from the temptation of that phenomena and his own desire to submerge himself in it. I also edited out a totally superfluous and cloying stanza that adds nothing to the poem.  I found a copy of the poem with the following notes added in red fountain pen.  The original name was Lights at Sea which was crossed out and replaced with That Night. My additional notes say: "That Night" was at Pemaquid, "the quicksilver sea" an old recurring dream. The afternoon . . . like so many.  I have in mind the glimmer of the night sea/of Impressionism/ of the afternoon/of love.  The 'diving' and the 'rose cave' - stolen conceits!"


The last comment sent me to the basement for my copies of Adrienne Rich. Her book, The Dream of a Common Language, had a profound effect on me as a poet and her influences will show up again and again. "Natural Resources" was the first poem of hers I read, from a magazine article, I think.  The diving conceit might have come from there, or from her poem, 'Diving into the Wreck'.  The 'rose cave'  comes from a line from her poem, (THE FLOATING POEM, UNNUMBERED) from the Dream of a Common Language, Twenty One Love Poems
        . . . your strong tongue and slender fingers
        reaching where I had been waiting years for you
        in my rose-wet cave - whatever happens, this is.

(You might wonder why I am not quoting the whole poem?  Well, these poems are so massively powerful that I would be ashamed to follow it with my own effort.  Rich's poems just make you feel the ache of love between two people that I would kill to be able to even come close to expressing.  Maybe later . . . .)

That night I picked my way out
over storm-worn ledges beyond the
windswept pines to watch the sea.
Below, the phosphorescent water
rose and lifted, misty in the rain;
rose and lifted, flowing over the unseen shore below.
Into that sea I would have plunged
drawn downward by its luminescence
as if by tidal force;
Submerged by current's pull
beneath the moving water's surface.


I remembered that night as we lay
in afternoon's fading luminosity.
Your flesh as warm and bare as
that sea's waves were cold and deep;
our love as mysterious and as fecund.
I moved down across your belly
to drink deeply of your rose cave's
sea-salt nectar on scrub pine's edge;
pressed kisses to your thighs.
I was submerged beneath that 
phosphorescent tide as you rose and lifted,
flowed and plunged over unseen shores
                                                             below.