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…