Yarbor Tides
I needed four extra credits to get a good mark in my high school English class. The English teacher offered one extra credit for each eleven lines of original poetry. That night I wrote Yarbor tides.
Yarbor Tides got published in The Hartford Courant, and I got my high school's yearly $5.00 poetry prize.
I was once honored when La Lee Becker requested permission to choreograph this piece ... I never saw the result and wonder how it came out.
Earth rocks, the seas boil,
The lava runs on barren soil;
The world is born.
And on the shores of Yarbor
The patient tide's begun;
The sea carves out a harbor
As seas and sands are one__
Time's morn.
And the storms rage, the lightning flashes,
The sea pounds, the thunder crashes,
And the tide rolls on at Yarbor.
Trees bloom, the birds fly,
All nature nature learns to live and die:
The world's alive.
And on the shores of Yarbor
The seasons run their course,
And sea life fills the harbor,
And land life learns by force
To thrive.
And the storms rage, the lightning flashes,
The sea pounds, the thunder crashes,
And the tide rolls on at Yarbor.
Two eyes behold creation now;
They peer from under beetle brow.
A man has come.
And on the shores of Yarbor
A city rises high,
And ships sail in the harbor,
And later in the sky
Star-flung.
And the storms rage, the lightning flashes,
The sea pounds, the thunder crashes,
And the tide rolls on at Yarbor.
Time flies, the world turns,
The city falls, the city burns;
Its death palls rise.
And on the shores of Yarbor
The hand of death extends,
And empty is the harbor,
And life at Yarbor ends.
-- Man dies.
And the storms rage, the lightning flashes,
The sea pounds, the thunder crashes,
And the tide rolls on at Yarbor.