Journey Homeward EXCERPT

7/31/2019 Journey Homeward EXCERPT

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JOURNEY

HOMEWARD

Poems by

Arnold Greenberg


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To my grandchildren:

Keira, Anna, Lena,

Aaron, Isaac, Atticus

For they are the beginning of the world


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All rights reserved Clayfield Books 2012


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Introduction

I was twenty-two when I signed on as a galley boyaboard a Norwegian freighter and left Brooklyn harbor with

twenty dollars to my name. I had no idea where this ship

would take me. I was Odysseus lost at sea searching for

meaning, for truth, for answers to lifes overwhelming

questions. Would I find what I was looking for out there?

Would I find my way back home, or would I always be lost

at sea looking at horizons? I didnt know. Looking back over

a span of many years, these poems travel through a wide

range of experiences--storms, love, marriage, children, the

joys, pains, sorrows, struggles and mysteries of this

journey and now, like Odysseus who returned to the rocky

shores of Ithaca long ago, I have my own rocky shore, this

place I call home and where I stand looking out at the

horizon.

Arnold Greenberg

East Blue Hill, ME


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Where shall a man find sweetness

to surpass his own homeand his parents?

In far lands he shall not

though he find a house of gold.

The Odyssey


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Table of Contents

Part 1: At Sea

Reflections on Leaving .......................................................9

The Last Goodbye..............................................................10

Looking at the Star............................................................11

Beirut: On the Dock...........................................................12

Port Said: Noon...................................................................13

The Red Sea ........................................................................14

Cliffs: Off the Coast of Africa ........................................15

Lost at Sea ...........................................................................16

The Old Man of the Sea...................................................

18Athens: The Parthenon ....................................................20

The Carver of Figureheads.............................................21

From Paris: Regards from an Old Poet .......................22

Strangers on a Train .........................................................23

Midnight Train: Cologne to Hamburg ..........................24

On the Ferry: Near Dawn.................................................26

From a Bar in Antwerp .....................................................28

Copenhagen: A Cafeteria ................................................29

Lunch at the Caf..............................................................

30A Sailors Letter to a Blond in Copenhagen ............. 31

Unsent Letter to a Lady in Copenhagen ....................33

Hamburg: The Red Light District ..................................35

The Last Night: From the Edge of the Pier................36

Part 2: Homeward

One Slight Touch................................................................38

Travelers...............................................................................

39Fantasies ..............................................................................41

Choosing an Illusion .........................................................43

Chagall ..................................................................................44

Before a Marriage Proposal ...........................................45

A Marriage Vow ..................................................................46

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........................................A Baker Dreams at Dawn 47

......................................................Sonnet for David 49

...................................................A Kind of Requiem 50

.....................................................For the New Year 51

....................................................................Wanting 53.........................................................Song of Myself 54

..............................These Flowers Must Have Care 55

......................................They Say You Mustnt Sing 56

.................Four Poems of Farewell: Adam and Eve 57

..........................................Don Quixote to his Lady 59

..................................................To Sleeping Beauty 61

............................To Scheherazade: Teller of Tales 63

............................................A River We Cant Cross 67

...........................An Old Farm: The Stones Garden 68.....................................................Another Birthday 69

.............................................................The Victims 71

.............................................My Old Baseball Glove 72

.................................................Looking Homeward 73

~ ~ 7


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Part 1:

At Sea

~ ~ 8


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REFLECTIONS ON LEAVING

The oily water didnt matter. The dirt

floated and the minnows underneath the pier

flashed like mirrors when the rose. The work

began around me. The men pulled lines and near

my feet--snake like--one moved. The tug boat hoots

were answered by the ships harsh bellow,

and sea gulls high above the garbage shoots

squawked in their gliding wait. Around the yellow

crane, shore men stood, finished loading

one more ship. The water stirred and churned

and the oil slick--blue and purple--broke like floating

pieces of a puzzle. The huge ship turned

Children grow and have to break away,

I know, but thats an easy thing to say

to someone else. It was difficult last night.

Her face was worried and the silent way

she drank her tea, looking deep into her cup,

made me know how much she wanted me to stay

at home. How can I forget her face? Up

until dessert she seemed alright. I know

she tried to understand and reconcile

her thoughts with what she felt. Children growbut theyre still children. Her smile

was stiff when I promised I would write

when I arrived wherever I was going

The sun was setting low in back of Brooklyn,

and the ship, at last, was heading east.

I stared down at the water and felt the wind

sting. My thoughts rushed by as the speed increased

and the shaking of the deck made me wonder

made me question all Ive ever saidabout my needing this. My heart was thunder

when I looked up at the seagulls over head

turning back then stared down at the swelling sea

not knowing where this ship was taking me.

~ ~ 9


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THE LAST GOODBYE

Looking at her in the bay,

green from rain and sea spray,

I thought how her torch in the sky

made men and women cry once.

The streets were paved with gold.

Their children would grow, they were told

and be rich and happy. Life would be new.

And here I was, leaving. Where to?

For what? I could not say,

but could only feel, like a gasp,

the need to get away

and breathe fresh air,

to follow every urge,

to walk gold streets inside of me, somewhere.

Somewhere?

Would streets be new, somewhere?

Looking at her, smaller now, who was I

to mock her promises as I waved goodbye?

~ ~ 10


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LOOKING AT THE STARS

At night,

standing out on deck,

the darkness

like the inside of a cave,

forces me to stare

into its darkness.

My mind seems vast

a universe with planets,

moons and stars.

Standing there,

gazing high into my mind,

watching thoughts sparkle

in the distance.

I wonder what it is

out there

beyond me,

pulling.

~ ~ 11


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BEIRUT:

ON THE DOCK

While maggots squirm and flies

dive down for scraps of food piled here

in rusted buckets,

the busy pier

ignores two boys

grabbing at a crust of bread

or a bone to eat.

No one saw then sneak

along the wall,

or heard the squeak

of the buckets lid

as the thrown out food

was shuffled through

and their skinny fingers

fought among the flies.

As I watch them make their way

past egg shells and shake

away the food that lingers

on a piece of food,

their eyes see mine

and for a moment we share

our getting caught:

that sudden flare

of rushing blood.

They rise,

their mouths stuffed

and stare at me.

I feel the flash

of their frightened eyesas they back away

then dash

like flies

from a swatter.

~ ~ 12


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LOST AT SEA

At night, sailing through the dark, Id lie awake

hearing the wind howl and the water break

and pound against the ship and there, lyingon my back, looking up into the dark,

Id listen to the night above me, sighing

restlessly, while the stillness, stark

and jagged, made my breathing fall and rise

like waves swelling under moonless skies.

Id lie there, rolling like the ship--no course,

no star, no way to steer, no way to force

myself to move in some direction, no sailto catch a wind and so, Id lie there

bobbing in the dark, hoping that a gale

howling through the night would blow me somewhere

closer to a coast. But no waves tossed,

and no wind blew--and so Id lie there, lost.

Night after night, tired from the hours

in the galley, Id search inside for towers

or lights--something that would help me findmy way to shore and lying there feeling more

and more as the dark nights passed that my mind

would sink before it reached whatever shore

it hoped to reach, Id think of other days

rolling in like fog from distant bays.

That lonely boy in dungarees, sitting

by the creek, fishing by himself, admitting

by his silence that the rocks and treesthat filled his days, the sound of giddy birds

and rushing water were enough to squeeze

excitement to his heart and squash the words

that ached there. Words he did not have to speak

because each cast sunk them in the creek.

~ ~ 13


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And who was that boy standing on the beach,

wondering if one day hed ever reach

the place where sea and sky touch. Could he take

the poetry of that and say he had

to seek another world? Or was the acheinside of him too deep to say how sad

he was? Did he know he had to find

a place where dreams and life touch in the mind?

Yet lying there, those shores would fade and I

would stare into the dark and starless sky

of my mind and like the midnight watch strained

to keep myself awake. Soon, I knew

Id fall asleep and would not feel the painedworld of this ship. What was there to do,

lying in my bed, my body warm,

my mind in the cold eye of a storm?

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Journey Homeward EXCERPT