Destructive Force

Posted bymarialbergPosted inPhotography, poetryTags:, ,

Today is Open Link Night at dVerse Poets Pub. Sanaa provided a mini-prompt which is a quote from Pablo Neruda’s poem from “The Wide Ocean.”

“Ocean, if you were to give, a measure, a ferment, a fruit
of your gifts and destructions.”

This made me think of the destructive power of water, and how this lake sometimes behaves like an ocean.

After the Waves Subsided by Maria L. Berg 2024

When Her Boat Rocks

The rope must have slipped, twisted
to the wrong side
and when the lake filled with wake
roiled like an ocean
you breached and slapped
like a love-lifted whale
pulling with such force
that your tethers could barely
hold, but the rope did not break
and the bumpers withstood
except one is askew
it’s bolts still intact
tore a curve through the wood
tracing the crest of waves
a violent gash of witness
proof of a disturbance
hard to imagine in this calm


Published by marialberg

I am an artist—abstract photographer, fiction writer, and poet—who loves to learn. Experience Writing is where I share my adventures and experiments. Time is precious, and I appreciate that you spend some of your time here, reading and learning along with me. I set up a buy me a coffee account, https://buymeacoffee.com/mariabergw (please copy and paste in your browser) so you can buy me a beverage to support what I do here. It will help a lot.

20 thoughts on “Destructive Force”

  4. It was great to hear you read yesterday, Maria, and I love this poem which speaks not just to the power of the storm but also to our human, perhaps uniquely human, ability to observe signs and construct a story about what has happened here…

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