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Peter Newton

Director’s Cut

through the kelp forest
a story
we make up

In my version of events it was a day in June. Our mother always a bride in our eyes; innocent, modest, easily swept off her feet. So taken with our father. Our father the sailor who swore he hated the stink of the sea and had a pianist’s hands. Hands a woman could respect. Strong, clean, and cared for. Hands that might one day learn piano.

Sixty-eight years later in their mingled ash form, our parents set sail on the Atlantic. A romantic if final cruise on a chartered boat to nowhere. That’s what we told the captain. Just take us out. However far. If we see a whale, fine, we see a whale. None of us cared much for sight-seeing. No strangers. No in-laws. Just us. Immediate family.

the starless part
in lieu of something
to believe

We requested a clear view of the Atlantic with no other vessels around. He cut the engine. No land in sight. We cradle-rocked awhile getting our sea legs, the pea-soup sea dropping away however many fathoms. The bobbing tower of a channel marker clanged nearby, sounding like the ship’s bell clock our father kept on the mantle. The one that no one could understand but him. What time is it? Who is on watch?

Our mother and father swirled a few times as they might have before we knew them. A Saturday night dance. Home by 10. It was a charmed life made more fortunate and fraught with seven children. But we all agreed. We were lucky. We never felt poor. Never unloved.

At the close of their dance our parents sank slowly away from the surface like the parting shot of some movie, one whose ending we may never understand.

more or less
where we left off
spring returns

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About the Author

Peter Newton is the author of several books in the Japanese short form traditions of haiku, haibun, and tan renga. His newest book of haiku is The Space We Open To (Red Moon Press, 2020).