Phoenixes

Listening to music tonight to drown out the fireworks, I was thinking about the fishing season just under way in Alaska, and found this on the page a few minutes later:

The Clothes They Wore

In my dream tonight

I stood on the deck of a boat

surrounded by ghosts of fishermen

who never returned from the sea.

They walked on water.

All of them rose out of the ocean

dripping, but not wet

and stood there facing me

as if to tell me what I missed.

I didn’t question the logic

of the dream. It was a dream, after all.

Not a nightmare.

But I had to wonder:

all these unnamed drowned,

no monument with a name attached

or standing near the shore

Phoenixes, wings spread cold before me.

No smiles or frowns, nor masks of anguish

on tortured faces. Passive expressions all.

 Not one spoke. They stood in a circle 

around me, my engine at idle.

Waves lapped the side of the boat.

I looked around – all points.

As far as I could see, they were there,

some in oilskins and nor’westers

some in sweatpants and bare feet.

The clothes they wore. I wondered

what would happen if I did not awaken –

if I would join them. It was then,

my t-shirt soaked with salt water, I did.