The depiction of Cape Hatteras lighthouse is by Louis F. Wengenroth IV, who generously gave us permission to use his work. The front cover painting is the original and it is in the artist’s possession; the painting on the back cover (not shown here) is a copy created for the author. It is in the author’s possession.
Ghost Lighthouse
Chris Waters
Equanimity
Preambles
I Colon
Driving cross-country, Colon the Cat jumped
somewhere in South Dakota. We retraced
fifty miles. After, reaching the East Coast,
we mailed fruitless ads to papers.
(Our new landlord, it turned out, forbade pets, but
that was cold comfort.) The night before this,
Colon had chased, his tether’s length, a bear.
He’d been named for his great appetite.
II Lola
Decades later, I and the cat Lola
were heading to open the summer house.
The AC system gone south, we made do,
poorly, with windows lowered just enough
A hundred miles to go when, with a tight chest,
I saw the shotgun side was a foot down:
Lola! Shades of Colon! “Lola!” No meow,
no Lola. I shut the window. Lola’s
unresponsive, and cats burrow deep down,
coming up only to use the toilet.
It’s cooler, too. An awful hundred miles.
She was likely still aboard, waiting it out,
no visual reminders of her torture.
If not, how to tell the family? Lola,
on some traffic island, panting away.
Lola, splattered. Lola, gassed at the Pound.
Journey’s end. Airily, Lola climbed up.
Equanimity
I Flat Tire at Turtle Pond
The bike tire squished flat, right at Turtle Pond,
on the return part of my daily ride.
For once, thank god for SUVs!: Two good
women pulled over. In the brief ride home,
I learned: they were New Englanders; their
husbands taught at West Point; their motel
was in Avon, the next town up; much more.
I grinned in the driveway, clasping Lola
in my free hand. All around: sadness, joy.
II The Bag in the Bike Rack
Looking for the book that was in the bag
in the bike rack, ton of bricks!: no more bag!
Digital camera—a second full chip
in the case—diary, bike chain, OFF: the works!
Phone the Avon motels? Could Google help,
West Point faculty list? Will they come back?
III Equanimity
Wait a minute! They will come back for sure,
they were nice people. And people are nice.
Look at me last week, boarding Lola at
the vet’s, my two-hundred-eighty mile slog
to Durham to see Alex and his stroke.
Wait a minute! Life s good, life s bad, life goes on!
What difference, if the bag’s gone forever!
IV Postlude
I’d watered the tomatoes by the time
they showed up, all four. “I’m Todd,” he said
handing me the bag as we shook. “Ah yes,
Cathy’s husband. You teach physiology.”
Inside, Cathy waved: “Hi! We all forgot.
We were thinking of the bike! How’s Lola?
No problem, we’re going to eat in Hatteras.
It’s two towns down?” Why wasn’t I warmer
with thanks? This time, no trotting Lola out.
We didn’t take each other for granted,
we took everything. The bag could have stayed
lost.
ISBN 1-59661-139-1
156 pages/$9
Chris Waters is from Wilmington, North Carolina. He and his wife, Dora, split their time between Hatteras and Rhode Island.
Songs of praise, loud songs of praise for Chris Waters’ newest full-length collection of new and selected poems, for each and every poem in the book is just that—a song of praise. Waters honors the cat, the pelican, the loaf of bread, the horizon. He walks the beach, he watches, he listens, and with each word in each poem he tenderly gives the world back to itself. The great poet Galway Kinnell said, “sometimes it is necessary to reteach a thing its loveliness.” These poems do just that As one reads through these pages, one gets the sense that this is how life should be lived—bearing simple witness to everything: the beauty of nature, the loss of a beloved pet, the gorgeous and sometimes awkward dance of this being human, and with each turn of the page, one is more and more filled with gratitude for all of it Waters’ book is a gift, a reminder that everything is sacred, but nothing is to be taken too seriously. As he reminds us in one of his poems: “Things happen,/ don’t happen, it doesn’t matter,/ it does matter. Poems get done.” Blessings on this collection, and gratitude, such gratitude, that Waters’ poems get done. This tired old world sure needs them.
—Lise Starr
Poet Laureate, Rhode Island
Chris Waters’ Ghost Lighthouse: New and Selected Hatteras Poems takes us on journeys both familiar and strange, all of them rendered in language that pulsates with the land itself and the creatures that live upon it, including the human. “Blue Shell Crab,” for example, shows Waters’ way with words, how they come alive in their mystery to reveal the life span of the she-crab that, two months after being courted by the “randy jimmy,” lets loose her two million larvae and “swims toward the open sea to die.” On the other hand, what could be more familiar to landlubbers than long-distance driving with the car radio on: “From nonstop hymns and sermons, there’s/the blessing of weather channels.” (“Summer's End, on the Drive Back North”) Waters knows the landscape of both habitation and migration, and his love for Hatteras and its sojourners shines through these poems. As he remarks, “Islanders really should look gently upon each other. We all should look gently upon each other.”
—Kathryn Stripling Byer
Former North Carolina Poet Laureate
“Chris Waters wanders off through the dunes and sandy stretches that make up the interior terrain of this rich collection of new and selected poems. He knows the importance of words with hooks and angles, and invites us along as he combs the beaches of Hatteras for glints of bright beauty, flashes of seaglass amid the flotsam and jetsam of our lives.
—Tom Chandler,
Former Rhode Island Poet Laureate
I have never read poetry like this—poetry that pulls one into story, language, and humanity. A luminous and original insight into the soul of man. There’s so much poetic genius here, the reader is immediately confronted with breathtaking discoveries.
—Rose Pearson,
Creative Director, The Writers’ Circle, Inc.