Stanley Bielecky's

BOATS & BUGGIES

 

"Read Top to Bottom"

by

James J. Bogan, Jr.

 

                The Mackinac Islander, last of the old coal burners, floats alongside the Arnold Dock

                One little line slopes the shed roof off the horizontal

                The diesel driven Huron motors up to moor against a maze of pilings vertical

                Black ink squiggles and blue water-color blurs compose the water

                Whose watery reflections dissolve the Huron's shipshape outline

        Into a fading image of itself:

                          four windows wavering

                          a mast maybe

                          a shadowy pilot house

 

                --Then in a Zen-leap of space come the busy buggies

                Like Michaelangelo who stopped God on the ceiling coming and going at the same time,

                Here are the buggies front, back, and side:

                                                            one fringed and empty waits eagerly for tourees

                                   the inmates of the Grand Hotel's omnibus are each one neatly window framed

                the top-hatted teamster of the third carriage holds the line diagonal

                as a be-derbyed driver ogles three broad-bottomed bicyclists wheeling by the base line

 

                Matched Belgians, strapped in sturdy harness, are rendered with cinched up accuracy

                Foreground centered the hefty horse puts a hoof forward

                Turns his elongated head towards us

                                                                      --as if to say:

                                              "Am I not as much an individual as you?

                                               And which of us, sir, is pulling the heavier load?"

 

                   This Mackinac scene itself

                   Floats on the blue void

                   and was Handed down

                                  by

                   Stanley Bielecky

 

 

                                                                                       

                                                                                           

                                                                                        for Ann Pitra & Iggie

                                                                                        Mackinac Island

                                                                                        July 24, 2000