Live Encounters Poetry & Writing Volume Four November-December 2024
Wet Feet, poems by Claudia Gary.
Wet Feet
Each wave approaches whispering, departs
with a hiss, tugs your ankles, leaves a line
of foam along the sand until the next wave
washes away that line and leaves its own.
You learn to jump up lightly so you float
without a thought, experiencing all.
But if you turn and look for the sand castles
you have been sculpting, gentle waves become
harsh interference. Such has been this week
of letting my immunity contend
with Covid. When I just watch, there’s the float
of knowing that however long it takes
I’ll end up standing, wriggling my toes
in foam, seeing the next small wave approach
and letting some of the sand castles go.
Layover
Confusion is desired
before boarding a plane.
Let the word-gusts rush past
from all directions, let wings
and cockpits ogle us
through sterile picture windows,
distract us from the awkward
seats in which we drift off,
return, drift off again
until we’re told it’s morning.
After a prayer, bring on
confusion’s obbligato
to quicken every hour
before our destination.
In Your Element
For Indran Amirthanayagam
You are a verb that navigates
across the page, across
borders and generations.
Whatever home you keep
is a verb’s home: syntax
to balance particle with wave.
Every wave—each phrase
you create and ride—
recreates you.
© Claudia Gary
Claudia Gary is a poet, science writer, visual artist, and composer of tonal songs and chamber music. She teaches workshops on Villanelle, Sonnet, Meter, “Poetry vs. Trauma,” and the science of poetry, at The Writer’s Center (writer.org) and privately, currently via Zoom. Author of Humor Me (2006) and chapbooks including Genetic Revisionism (2019), she is also an advisory editor for New Verse Review. A semifinalist for the Anthony Hecht Prize (Waywiser), Honorable Mentionee in the Able Muse book contest, and three-time finalist in the Howard Nemerov Sonnet Contest, Claudia has chaired panels on Poetry and Music, Poetry and Science, and “The Sonnet in 2016,” at the West Chester University (Pa.) poetry conference; and on Poetry and Music at the Frost Farm poetry conference. Her 2022 article on setting poems to music is online at https://straightlabyrinth.info/conference.html. See also pw.org/content/claudia_gary