"Teach's Hole"

Teach's Hole - from the vantage point of Springer's Point - Ocracoke Island, NC

Teach's Hole

Live oaks hunched and bent

for centuries have pointed the way,

loblolly, beach, and maple offer swaths of shade

as perspiration tickles paths down my spine

and the humid breeze lifts a curl,

for even straight hair bends in this tucked away place

where, if one believes or listens closely enough,

a pirate's wail or song may be heard

within the deep folds of a foggy morn.

Easily imagine a bottle of rum in hand;

initial heat searing a path from throat,

to chest, to stomach.  Close my eyes,

hear the digging and hiding of the treasure chest -

for we all know it's here, somewhere...

Find myself silhouetted beneath a stunted, stilted canopy, 

divest myself of its protection, enter realm of sea and sky,

sink my toes into shifting warm sand,

witness windswept trees, roots exposed,

lounging drunkenly upon dune grass and shore;

they obviously know where the kill-devil's hidden.

Wonder which are native to Teach's Hole

and which were cast ashore upon a hurricane's whim. 

Beach glass glints blue-green but I walk by

as I spy a hermit crab at ocean's edge,

play peekaboo for a while; a gambler's luck not mine

as he darts inside at each sneaky turn of my wrist.

Return him to salty spray and settle

beside beach grass and sea oats, wax myrtle and holly,

watch pelicans and seagulls swoop and glide

above (and below) ocean's rolling surface.

Marvel how little some things change; find comfort

knowing swarthy pirates, shipwrecked ponies,

and sundry floral & fauna have anchored themselves

upon this slip of shoreline with their own triumphs

and tragedies - some widely written of,

others left to the ghosts of imagination

and as the sun settles, awash with a glorious template

of which I'd accuse a painter of exaggerated artistic liberty,

I bend my ear, eavesdrop, and embrace evening's breath

as she whispers a few secrets and stories of her own.

by Margaret Bednar, August 14, 2017

* The chiefe fudling they make in the Island (i.e. Barbados) is Rumbullion alias Kill-Devill, and the is made of suggar can distilled, a hott, hellish and terrible liquor. ("A briefe Description of the Island of Barbados" 1651)

Ocracoke Island HERE

This is linked (belatedly as I was on vacation on Ocracoke) with "Imaginary Garden with Real Toads - Out of Standard - writing unseen"

Also linked with "Imaginary Garden with Real Toads - The Tuesday Platform"

"Driftwood"