IN THE MIDST OF WATER, 1974

by Moná Ó Loideáin Rochelle

Love is my name.                               

  Thomas Merton

By ripe September beach plums

violet-winged Drurys rest on rugosa rose.

Sultry heat penetrates her second-hand shift

as she walks sandy Wauwinet Road—

skies of scalloped honeysuckle cream

play with the Atlantic sea.

A breeze from the sea

and tastes of tart purple plums

recall a dream.

She is a rose

on heaven’s road

in search of love bereft.

Given to thrift,

she forages wild blueberries by the sea,

recalls Seeds of Contemplation on the road

to the sea, and becomes

a fragrant wild rose

in a mystic dream.

As if in another dream,

waves crash dunes on the long-shore drift,

spiced bayberries transpose

insanity to poetry

as she plumbs

Merton’s ode—          

  

Crazy saints walk a road,

sing verse, mind serene—

knowing beyond knowing love comes,

love lifts,

as a flower of light—fleur-de-lis,

chanting riptide polyphonic prose.

She laughs with the wild beach rose,

delights as the salt marsh road

ends at Coatue’s cobalt sea.

Dreaming daydreams,

shedding her sheer cotton shift,

plunging under a wave, she becomes

a sea rose, surfs the Gulf Stream,

recalls his ode, recalls her gift,

poetess kissed by September’s sun.    

* * * * *

"In the Midst of Water, 1974" was originally published in The Merton Seasonal: A Quarterly Review. Winter 2015).

Moná Ó Loideáin Rochelle is published in The Southern Review, American Journal of Poetry, Notre Dame Review, Southword and elsewhere. She’s the author of On the Brink of the Sea (Cave Moon Press, 2019), and Mourning Dove (Finishing Line Press, 2014). All revenue from sale of On the Brink of the Sea is donated to Médecins Sans Frontières and Catholic Relief Services, for whom she volunteers. She holds a PhD and MPH from the University of Washington. https://monalydon.com/