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Keith Emmons' debut work of poetry, 

                 Moondrifter Reverie,

published by Red Mountain Press, Santa Fe.

"Life in the Waldo Point houseboat community was much like the Moondrifter, the author's own houseboat, swinging free on its mooring and subject only to the daily rhythm of wind and tide. Keith Emmons recalls a utopian civic experience that flourished in the 1970s in Sausalito on San Francisco Bay . . . through poetry, haiku, and free verse." (Cover excerpt)

 

Read an excerpt from Moondrifter Reverie

 

           I thought I’d live on a boat

          on the blue water

              when the dawn rose up

              when the rain fell down

          I thought a little log

          I’d slip in the fire

              as the rain fell down

              as the dawn rose up

          I thought I’d row to shore

          in a bright little dinghy

              while the sun rose up

              while the rain fell down

          and I did.

          yes I did.

 

breakfast is over

              Mr. Great Blue Heron – here I come

                             rowing past.

Now the rooster crows

like nobody would notice the yellow sun

but the mommas of Gate Six noticed,

I can tell, cause four grade-schoolers

just ran by skipping and yelling “Hey,

is the bus gone? Come on!”

toting their lunch pails, leaving our community,

up before everybody,

to learn something about how shore people think.

 

Gate Six, this is where rubble is King!

Gate Six your gate is a small path

past the compost heap, corn husks and cantaloupe halves,

through blooming squash, petunias and lettuce heads,

over the itty-bit bridge to the meeting area,

              by the Brown House,

              between the ferries:

Charles Van Damme,

its hulking square frame

huge-beamed red paddle wheels,

and the two-stacker white Issaquah,

her lower decks submerged at high tide.

 

 

   a mother in a long green dress

                 walks her blond girl to the bus

                                hand in hand

Oh I know

I’m mad to love this place

but when the cormorant dives and red sails

on the horizon slightly move…

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