Here stood Miles Standish,
military leader of Plymouth
Colony, looking out to sea:
where now a nuclear
power
plant stands,
about to be de-
commissioned.
Clams squirt vertically
from underneath the
sand at low tide,
as tall as
Pilgrim Nuclear
the ending
of this era
is all error:
in retreat
from the world,
like Ming dynasty ships,
once wide-ranging,
rotting in place.
sailors, explorers
called back from
cultures
other than their own,
wrecked junks
in estuaries,
rivers,
channels.
Pulling in ladders,
bridges,
refusing
to let citizens of other
countries
come in –
hunkering down to
make America great;
insisting
America first!
lack of faith,
of foresight.
by the shore
soft blue water,
strip of warm orange sand,
sparkling waves all speak
of nature’s beneficence
but in the winter,
Miles and others
learned
the cold, sere, ice-crusted shore
is too cold to walk on
what did he see,
looking out to the new landscape,
what future portend,
sword buckled
to his belt,
glass held up to his eye….
Sarah Sutro’s work is published in Amsterdam Quarterly; Panorama, Journal of Intelligent Travel; Rockhurst Review; The Big Chili; Greylock Independent and anthologies From the Finger Lakes, Bangkok Blondes, Unbearable Uncertainty, and Improv. Author of the poetry book, Etudes, as well as COLORS: Passages through Art, Asia and Nature, she works as an editor and writes articles and reviews for American Arts Quarterly. She has been finalist for the Robert Frost Poetry Award and Mass. Cultural Council Fellowship in poetry, and been a resident at MacDowell Colony, Millay Colony, Ossabaw Island Foundation, Blue Mountain Center, and the American Academy in Rome.
