Nauticus Poetica

This next post takes a bit of explaining. During a business trip to Cambridge, MD, my wife and I decided to take a small side trip to Oxford, a small town that sits on a perfect Chesapeake site on the Tred Avon River. This is a very old town (est. 1649) that is distinguished as the home of Robert Morris, a signer of the Declaration of Independence and a major financier of the Revolutionary War. Fully 67% of Oxford’s homes are on the National Registry of Historic Homes. Suffice it to say, Oxford is a powerful charmer. We walked throughout the town streets and lanes, which are mostly joined by the main avenue: Morris Street- named after you-know-who. As we strolled, I could imagine us living in this quaint little place. Eventually, the walk inspired this short poem…

Morris Street


The tender touch of rain
Cool patterns on breeze-kissed skin
Distracts us not at all
From the time-steeped taste of maritime flavors-
Oxford on Morris.
A cat on the passing porch
Switches time with an idle tail
A prince of his painted bead board domain.
Leaf-rustle hushes whisper
Contra point to the tympani of the halyard-clank.
A street that threads a fragile point
Of elegance and age rising from the wind-traced mirror,
Shimmered reflectance with a name,
Tred Avon.

We hold hands, walk and try to see
Our life-if-it-were-here
Chock-a-block with Hinckleys
And Adirondack chairs amidst the hydrangeas
A chardonnay tinkled toast on an ivy-bound sidedeck
Overlooking white-winged sail.
We talk in near-whispered voices
Afraid of visions flying away
In the sharp-set focus of where we must be
And when.

We know in heart’s mirror
Inside this lovely fantasy joined
Is the gentle outline of the love we match
And have matched for years.
Gentleness and a place to be
When sometime spirits
want to fly off the handle.
We find a calm breath taken
And realization wakes:
Beauty and desire is always there
Found now as we walk this street
And see these surroundings as a symbol of grace
Because we share it