The Ship Builders
Is it the earth that’s drying up and shrinking or am I? Tibet in twelve hours but the face I shave goes laggard. The world’s machinery declines routine maintenance and decay accelerates. Viruses carom across continents and seem alone in being adaptive. Predictive text still offers Ivanka when I sign my name to a message. I’m no longer confident those are contrails out over the pacific. I’ve taken to planting fast growing trees to compensate for my heart’s irregularities. Cultivation – books or apples – one wonders why.
On a small Hawaiian island a bearded old man and his young bride are constructing a large wooden ship. I wish to feel more hope from their message of resistance and resilience but instead my sense of futility festers.
A native of Ireland and a lapsed neurologist, Ivo Drury lives along the California Coast. Poetry published recently or pending publication featured in Red Eft Review, Rockvale Review, Avalon Literary Review and Schuylkill Valley Journal among others.
Bindweed Magazine 