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Seaweeds

By Sandra McPherson b. 1943 Sandra McPherson

I know a little what it is like, once here at high tide

Stranded, for them to be so attached to the bottom’s

Sarcophagus lids, up to their brown green gold wine

Bottle necks in the prevailing booze, riding, as far

As we can see, like a picnic on a blanket.

Whatever plucks them from below the red horizon

Like snapped pulleys and ropes for the pyramidal effort

Of the moon, they come in, they come through the breakers,

Heaps of hair, writing across the beach a collapsed

Script, signers of a huge independence.

Melville thought them pure, bitter, seeing the fog-sized

Flies dancing stiff and renaissance above. But I

Have eaten nori and dulse, and to have gone deep

Before being cast out leaves hardly a taste of loneliness.

And I take in their iodine.

Sandra McPherson, “Seaweeds” from Radiation (New York: The Ecco Press, 1973). Copyright © 1973 by Sandra McPherson. Reprinted with the permission of the author.

Source: Poetry (November 1972).

Biography

Sandra McPherson weaves vivid images culled from nature into what Contemporary Women Poets contributor David Young characterizes as "rich, complex, and deeply satisfying poems." In collections that include the National Book Award-nominated The Year of Our Birth, 1988's At the Grave of Hazel Hall, and 1996's Edge Effect: Trails and Portrayals, McPherson has increasingly honed her unsentimental, insightful verse, imbuing it with . . .

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