Sea Grapes and Sea Oats

      Copyright © 2018 Jeffrey Jay Niehaus. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3, Eugene, OR 97401.

      Resource Publications

      An Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers

      199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3

      Eugene, OR 97401

      www.wipfandstock.com

      paperback isbn: 978-1-5326-5659-0

      hardcover isbn: 978-1-5326-5660-6

      ebook isbn: 978-1-5326-5661-3

      Manufactured in the U.S.A.

      FOR

      ERIN & ANNIKA

      beauty is truth, truth beauty

      AFTER SONNETS

      After sonnets how about a siesta

      Sombrero in hot sun over your face

      No sound around, but tumbleweed

      Casually rolling past could be

      A low, silent breeze after them—

      As you repose against an old fence?

      On a southwestern afternoon

      You could dream of chilis, enchiladas

      Jalapeños and Scoville units

      And not have to worry about tomorrow

      Because endorphins took it all away

      Before it could bother you today.

      As you relax upon some old wood

      Gastronomics offer short delay.

      POEM TO ROTTING APPLES

      Why would you compose a poem to rotting apples?

      —Maggi

      Why would one compose a poem, you ask,

      To rotting apples?

      Although long ago

      As humans ordinarily count long

      Schiller loved to do so—and who knows

      Who brought the apples to his study

      Or what inspiration entered him

      When nostrils dilated to catch and hold

      For elevated moments those aromas

      Just a rotten apple could produce?

      So now you have conjured a new poem,

      A sonnet I would hardly have composed,

      Only, I spoke of Schiller—and you mocked.

      So mockery and playfulness gave birth

      To what a rotten apple has brought forth.

      BIRD OF PARADISE

      Paradisaeidae (your Latin name)

      Accustomed to New Guinea and her islands

      But also now and then in Florida

      One could spot in yard or garden

      Your tropical outrageous orange crest—

      A crown of many colors honestly

      And not one color of a Florida fruit.

      I saw you only rarely as a boy

      In our subtropical peninsula.

      West Palm Beach was almost part of sand

      And sea and plants and animals could be

      Sublimely indifferent to us.

      Who could own such a crown and be

      So tranquil beyond words

      O rara avis

      COFFEA

      Coffea I love you—imagine

      How you can stimulate

      Any hour I hope to enjoy you—

      O save a soul from Yankee lethargy

      Coffea Arabica whose glossy leaves

      Although lovely hardly offer us

      A clue as to what pink or purple berries

      Can do for a desperate soul.

      So transport me to India, Cameroon

      Or anywhere in South America

      Or even better take me to Jamaica

      And her Blue Mountains

      or rather her coast

      And Sugar Mill Restaurant

      where I can sip

      Coffea

      by an abandoned water wheel

      TWO PALMS

      Two palm trees at North Palm Beach

      So long ago when Florida

      Was simple—undeveloped as men say

      You saw them arcing tall and narrow and

      You thought they should be on a post card

      Or rather, thought they were

      so unreal

      Those palms looked to one from England.

      I could reassure you they were not

      Imaginary or some sort of art

      Posing as palms

      on a public shore.

      SALISBURY CATHEDRAL

      Astounding mass of stonework on grass,

      Flat and rolled as one may often see

      In England’s green and pleasant

      land

      Masonry to Our Lady a spire,

      Tallest in the isle—no aspiration

      Beyond a hope of heaven.

      May no hubris

      Undo our offering.

      Once, a skeptic,

      I ambled on your plain and saw

      Your solemn cloister and the eloquent

      Chaste fan vault of your chapter house

      And hardly understood how such work

      Could honor God who was supernal

      Only older would I know

      Architecture

      can become a song.

      CASTILLO DE SAN MARCOS

      Old castle at Matanzas Bay