Huntin' Creek Poem by Robert P Arthur

At night I dream
of hardening shells
where shallows
drop
to channels
and seagulls, circling, sign
of grass so slick
and smooth
that progmen in their beamy boats
chug the seams
of bottoms' mud
through morning rain.

The air is breathless in my head.

The sun's a shiver
on the weather shore
and gulls in storms of mewing
grays and whites
follow the dragged iron,
croupier scrapes
that pop live crabs from grass in cards
of fiddler cream
and olive hue
to fill rough hands with peelers soft
as wind, and buckrams in their ancient blue.

All night the wind is blowing.
All night it cries through my dreams
like some forsaken sailor man dead
and unredeemed by dying.

And unredeemed by dying.

You'll catch more crabs when you're out there than when you ain't!

The marshland sings of dreams unending
of waves of grasses black and green
fleshed with flounder, ray
and fattened worm.
The sun suspends itself in liquid blue.
Smith Island weeps with light
The day is ending.

The sea is slaty ca'm, as they say.

Now comes a dream within a dream
out where the buoys
bob tidal urge and doings.
Waters close over the sea blown
roofs of Tyler town.

All night the wind is blowing.
All night it cries through my dreams
like some forsaken poor progger dead
and unredeemed by dying

More arysters down there than we been ketchin'
says old Ben Parks, pulling shut his coat.

One-eyed jacks and deuces wild
by the guttering candles.