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Sunday 6 December 2009

Looking Out from Ocean View


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File:Ggb03162006a.jpg





From here one can no longer see the lights of Golden Gate Fields
hard outlines of day faded to charcoal colours
bleeding into evening indefinitely
as present and future blend into past
through winter's glowing exact cold out there
that illuminated necklace of memories swaying in darkness
the thought ocean
littered with these listing wrecks





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View of Golden Gate Bridge, from Albany: photo by David Corby, 2006
S.S. American Star (former S.S. America) beached and disintegrating on the island of Fuerteventura: photo by Ian Pullen, 2006

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

"that illuminated necklace of memories swaying in darkness"

What a metaphor! Bridges have always been mystical for me. Crossing them would always be an adventure wondering what was waiting on the other side.

The shipwreck photograph is awe-inspiring.

TC said...

Lucy,

So many ships have beached and wrecked and gone aground in bad Atlantic storms off the little town of Fuerteventura in the Canary Isles, by now all the inhabitants must be locos por naufragar!

Zephirine said...

Ooh, not only can you click on the top photo to see it separately, but you can then click again to see it big and in panoramic detail.

But what I really like is the last line:
the thought ocean littered with these listing wrecks
with that photo, which is so strangely upsetting. I feel that the wrecks in my own thought ocean are less powerful and tragic, more like stoved-in little rowing boats or broken crates...

TC said...

Well, Zeph, mine, too, are probably limited to the floating-bathtub variety. But what is it about a shipwreck that causes the mind to pause and ponder so? Maybe the visible evidence of the puny strength of the most elaborate of human intentions and creations, when they are matched up against Nature's infinitely vaster, entirely unconcerned power?

The American Star (former SS America, elder sister and once the running mate of the SS United States) took the better part of fifteen years to break up and finally sink on the rocks off Fuerteventura, perhaps the most infamous ship graveyard on earth.

(One needn't underline the possible symbolic what's-in-a-name aspects of that story of great broken might.)


By the way that marvelous pan shot of the Bridge at night was taken just down the road from us; the original incorporated name of this part of town was Ocean View.

Julia said...

Oh, no... The last picture was too much for me (I had to run away!!) You know why...
Your texts are beautiful, though

TC said...

Oh, Perdoname, Julia...