Salt Air and Honeysuckle

On a salt air and honeysuckle day,

waves broke over rock and sand,

sunbeams sparkled on the sea

through early morning mist,

and least sandpipers scurried

along the water’s foamy edge

in the summertime at Watch Hill

in the 1960’s when I was young

and sat with my father in Snuffy’s,

just the two of us, happy as we ate

blueberry pancakes with Log Cabin syrup.  

In the waterfront park across the street,

Chief Ninigret’s statue remains mounted

on a boulder as he was that day,

in a different location now,

but kneeling still with a blackfish

in each hand and gazing westward.

So too Ridley Watts, the dreamer,

still sits on a granite pedestal

in perpetual contemplation,

his head resting on his upturned knee,

his other leg folded beneath him.

Ensconced as they are in bronze,

and as some say is true in Heaven,

they do not know the sorrow

inherent in earth’s ephemeral days

as do we who yet breathe in deeply

scents of salt air and honeysuckle

on a summer day at Watch Hill.

Honeysuckle on Bluff Avenue, Watch Hill, RI, July, 2023