Graveyard of Anchors

I wrote this poem in spring of 2013 after visiting Dilek Peninsula National Park in Turkey. I was working in nearby Izmir at the time, and some of my work friends and I took a weekend trip to this gorgeous park jutting out into the Aegean Sea. We hiked along the peninsula and waded through the shallow waters of the Great Menderes Delta, where I came across this striking image: abandoned anchors sticking out of the sand. The following is a fixed form poem, a Shakespearean sonnet, about that intriguing image.

In shoal delta waters, fishing to quell

the drift, I heave my hook into its grave.

Sea grass sway below, ghosts stirred by each wave.

My anchor plummets down, hums like a knell.

As Hades’ viper pulls beauty to Hell,

forsaken anchors green tendrils enslave,

and barnacles grip the tombstones to stave

off the plunge, laid to rest under worn shell.

To retire here, sweet rocking side-to-side

with driftless wood and sunken glass I’d be

interred with debris, gypsies cast aside.

Divorced anchor tethers never bob for a quay;

for open waters and what may betide,
these algae-covered ropes point out to sea.

 

 

first published in: Edge. Tahoe Writers Works. Vol. 10. Dec. 2016. Print.