Posts Tagged ‘Carolina Beach’

Landmarks and Memories

The assignment was to write
about a landmark
and all my mind could do
was go back to the images
I was viewing
of Wilmington, North Carolina.

But what landmark stands
out in my memory of
this place that I once called home?

There's the Battleship North Carolina,
but there's just something
uninviting about looking down
the barrels of those guns
in the photograph here
on this web page.

There's any number of
historic homes and buildings
that make up the historic district...
I'm not sure I have a favorite
but I did enjoy the
Haunted Wilmington tour
around Halloween.

The beaches around Wilmington
– those are landmarks
to me -
such memories...

On nights like tonight,
if I was closer, I'd go down
to Wrightsville Beach and
think – or find inspiration.

Sure I could tell you
about a number of other
landmarks that you should see -
if you asked me for a tour,
I could easily fill up a nice
weekend...

But that's not what
this poem is presenting...
It's not about that -
I started thinking about where
I grew up – up north, in CT -
and landed now, tonight
in Wilmington.

Share on Facebook

In The Boat

This time it felt
just like a premonition.
In the dream,
I felt like a ghost -
I was there with you
transparent to your sight
you looked right through me
not seeing me.

My love for you
keeps these dreams alive
But I must be
strong and sober,
yet even amethyst could not
prevent the intoxication
of these memories.

There is something familiar
about the place -
I recognize in the distance,
somewhere, the Cape Fear river
empties into the ocean.

There by the water
we stood
yet you did not see me.
I watched you enter your sailboat.

I tried to call out
but I was so scared
of loosing you.

I watched you drift away,
fading out of sight.

The poet Anne Sexton
wrote of her great rowing
toward God.

The boat I enter
takes me back in time -
back to you. 

By Bruce Whealton – April 2009

Share on Facebook