Four Poems After Winslow Homer, by Mary Alice Williams

Girl Carrying a Basket, by Winslow Homer (USA) 1882

Girl Carrying a Basket
 
Like sea lavender, beach pea, bayberry,
like the eastern aster, pitch pine, sea holly,
creeping buttercup, wild beach rose,
she thrives along a rugged 
salt-sprayed coast, shifting 
as dunes shift in off-shore winds.
Her arms, her legs, her deep core
up to the enduring task,
carrying the day’s weight
in a basket never emptied.
 

Danger, by Winslow Homer (USA) 1883

Danger
 
Born to this place
they know 
to time the pace 
of the incoming tide, 
stay sure-footed
on slippery table rocks.
The moon-pull
on their bodies,
the horizon clouded
with unyielding expectations-
therein the danger lies.
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Mending the Nets, by Winslow Homer (American) 1881

 
​Mending the Nets
 
Calloused fingers find
sea-worn holes,
thread the shuttle,
loop and tie.
Not quite bowed, 
they buoy each other
entwined in anonymous labour
against an anonymous sky.

Autumn
 
She knows there’s not
another Spring or Summer.
Winter waits.
She hitches up her skirt,
faces the trail with eager ease,
blazes, a leaf catching fire
in the season given-
with ardor,
without regret.

Mary Alice Williams

Mary Alice Williams lives and writes in Grand Rapids, Mi, quite near America’s Third Coast. She’s originally from Providence RI, quite near America’s First (East) Coast. Having spent much of her life community organizing she is now, as an octogenarian, focusing on honing her voice and  skills as a poet. She has recently been published in several on- line journals and has a poem in the forthcoming print anthology, Sunflowers, from River Paw Press.
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