Islands in the Chesapeake
This author is a recipient
of the Sigma Tau Delta Award
Philip Goldfarb Styrt
lives in Davenport, Iowa, USA with his wife, toddler, and toothless dog. His poetry focuses on traditional forms with modern flair and has been published in the Eastern Iowa Review, Coffee People Zine, and Quercus, among others. Styrt is a faculty member at St. Ambrose University.
SOCIALS
“It’s hard,” she said, “to live against the shore,
Hoping the water will not wear away
The rocks beneath you. Every year it slides
Closer and closer. Someday nothing more
Will be left here, except the surging gray
Of cloudy water. So the sea abides.
But I could not imagine leaving here,
Even once the sea drowns our foundation;
The slow insistence of the land’s ablation
Is insignificant against the sheer
Delight of standing nightly at the pier
Watching with intense exhilaration
As horny egrets hunt each blue cetacean
Across the tidal, rocky, reaching mere.”