Ten Penny Players publication

Captiva Pass (BOOK 6)

Children of Light
a poetry novel Book VI: Captiva Pass

Mary Clark

by

The soul is a burning desire to breathe in this world of light and never to lose it to remain children of light. Albert Schweitzer Ten Penny Players Publication www.tenpennyplayers.org Copyright Mary Clark 2004

Robert K. Nicholas
Special Thanks to Ruth Buck Clark for her help with the flora and fauna of Florida and Bradford Dov Lewis for his encouragement

Dedicated to

my sixth grade teacher Sarasota, Florida

Illustrations by Forrest Stanley Clark

Captiva Pass

CHILDREN

OF

LIGHT

BOOK VI: CAPTIVA PASS

Morning comes, a surprise blood red at noon

sea hibiscus yellow at first light scarlet hibiscus on the bank of a swamp the roses of eternity

marsh mallow pink and high on the stalk:

CHILDREN

OF

LIGHT

BOOK VI: CAPTIVA PASS

The play of light in all its variations in laurel cherry and long leaf pine gives way to sweet bay and railroad vine as Dia travels in a pure straight line to Leila, the Old Man and the island the center of all designing

CHILDREN

OF

LIGHT

BOOK VI: CAPTIVA PASS

The Hutton house a wrecked ship risen to the surface of the sea and blackened beams floating sacrificially, twisted steel

CHILDREN

OF

LIGHT

BOOK VI: CAPTIVA PASS

Rain falls on the white house

the Old Mans cabin, Leilas bungalow as Dia watches the sun come and go serene, muted, among clouds

CHILDREN

OF

LIGHT

BOOK VI: CAPTIVA PASS

With an incendiary burst the sun and Dia is swept away

fills the sky, fires the rhythmic sea by the frail transience of reality

CHILDREN

OF

LIGHT

BOOK VI: CAPTIVA PASS

she laughs, you know I would not

The Old Man says, I thought you forgot me

and she helps him sweep sand from his home a shipwreck that smells of wind and sea foam

CHILDREN

OF

LIGHT

BOOK VI: CAPTIVA PASS

Dia asks Leila, where is he?

and Leila smiles, Ill tell you the way Dia runs along the shorelines wide and graceful swing into the sea swept along by a tide quick as fire

In the darkness she feels light as light

CHILDREN

OF

LIGHT

Night swimmers in the phosphorescent sea at Naples by the fishing pier with angels wings on Sanibel Island beaches luminescent Eric rests in the fold

BOOK VI: CAPTIVA PASS

of high curved banyan roots where gravity takes hold and takes in the sea roll of the Gulf of Mexico

CHILDREN

OF

LIGHT

BOOK VI: CAPTIVA PASS

In the bend of Captiva Island Eric meets his friend and he says, I want to live and who have found you but La-ha-ta tells him

among the people you have found to give myself up to a life-swoon your light is sea and wind

and carves its own path within

CHILDREN

OF

LIGHT

BOOK VI: CAPTIVA PASS

Eric asks, arent you angry at having been abandoned having no parents, no home? and I will be again

La-ha-ta says, I was abandoned perhaps I needed no home no mother or father compared to you? but what have I overcome

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CHILDREN

OF

LIGHT

BOOK VI: CAPTIVA PASS

Eric feels Dias hand on his shoulder

he says, you have always been strong

she answers, I considered the possibility I might be wrong and threaded my guilt through my innocence until this quilt was all around me

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CHILDREN

OF

LIGHT

BOOK VI: CAPTIVA PASS

This is the quilt many wear, rightly you know deep inside the cocoon the ultimate truth: the birth of the soul

but even though you are wound tightly

has no mother or father

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CHILDREN

OF

LIGHT

On an island cast away like a stone through mounds of shell and bone build homes on the ruins of a past civilization

BOOK VI: CAPTIVA PASS

from the Everglades two walk alone where pioneers from another zone

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CHILDREN

OF

LIGHT

BOOK VI: CAPTIVA PASS

Violet clouds roll overhead

glare fills the air, clouds and sky and the rain explodes in fire Speedboats roar into shore, slice drive the doctor and his men

into sand and more: into flesh and bone casting two bodies into tall grass flecks of blood, flakes of gore make angels wings on the sand

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CHILDREN

OF

LIGHT

BOOK VI: CAPTIVA PASS

Dias eyes open to somber radiance of rain amber veils of light, dazzling pain prone and dying she fights to rise and finds La-ha-ta

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CHILDREN

OF

LIGHT

BOOK VI: CAPTIVA PASS

A sailor, a hired man kneels on the beach the doctor stands back, beyond reach and says, hes no use to me dead

carry them both to the boats, head back to the coast, theres a strong wind blowing in from the open Gulf

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CHILDREN

OF

LIGHT

BOOK VI: CAPTIVA PASS

Roaring motors surround her drowning fast clouds unfurl, emerald waves curl thunderheads mass as the boats veer into the pass

out song and surf, on the horizon closing colors of the sea knit blue and purl green

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CHILDREN

OF

LIGHT

BOOK VI: CAPTIVA PASS

This is what it comes down to all actions count for nothing Is there no more she can do? Is she like the Old Man?

she wants to leap into the sea Has she lived past her destiny? when she hears him speak

she leans down to kiss his cheek Im very much among the living

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CHILDREN

OF

LIGHT

BOOK VI: CAPTIVA PASS

He rises as if freed from a dream leaps into the stream and in the moment terror flows

through her as the men scream

Why am I here among enemies?

she throws herself into the deep blue

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CHILDREN

OF

LIGHT

BOOK VI: CAPTIVA PASS

And in the storm theyre lost

battered shells translucent bouquet and gentle rainfall at end of day

a glimmering curve reveals all

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CHILDREN

OF

LIGHT

The setting sun casts out its netting catching all large and small sea breezes sing through a lyre of cypress clouds of white ibis flow into darkness as palms lift frayed wings to night the suns last rays ignite the gulf: the palm of eternity, visible as it turns

BOOK VI: CAPTIVA PASS

fish mate with waves, streaming into light

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CHILDREN

OF

LIGHT

BOOK VI: CAPTIVA PASS

No one sees them hold tight rock with the rowdy surf

to aerial tightropes, roots of mangroves nest in coco plum, rest in banyan and walk from limb to limb gumbo limbo

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CHILDREN

OF

LIGHT

BOOK VI: CAPTIVA PASS

On the plains of memory circus tents stand empty canopies of the heart storm winds rush in the circuitous circle

wind-lifted wings reveal inner stages shifting perspectives, currents of change the three-ring circus: birth, life, and death

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CHILDREN

OF

LIGHT

BOOK VI: CAPTIVA PASS

In a matter of time they will know that we did survive and now we must decide to go back together into the fire or only you or only I or stay together in separate harmony

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CHILDREN

OF

LIGHT

BOOK VI: CAPTIVA PASS

You decide

what they decide

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CHILDREN

OF

LIGHT

BOOK VI: CAPTIVA PASS

The End

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CHILDREN

OF

LIGHT

BOOK VI: CAPTIVA PASS

Mary Clarks childhood experiences on the Gulf Coast of Florida inspired her to write Children of Light. Rutgers-Newark College of Arts & Sciences, she moved to New York City. She was the director of the Poetry Festival at St. Clements Episcopal Church, and later executive director of a neighborhood organization and a community newspaper. Her poetry has appeared in The Archer, Lips, East River Review, and Waterways:Poetry in the Mainstream. After graduating from

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A Ten Penny Players Publication www.tenpennyplayers.org 2012