A Sense of Place

               ...the large
                   sad Pacific Ocean
                        —Denis Johnson

Historians-

those cartographers of mankind's battlefields-

tell us that one can still

find, in the flotsam

of the Great War trenches,

pince nez, charred butts of rifles,

and spent shells

rusted by earth's action.

But an ocean is a different place.

The landscape is obscured,

the topography is not so easily charted,

and only the swells

testify the actions of the past,

always rising

falling.

The Pacific Ocean,

for example,

stands a witness

to its implacable parting

by Commodore Perry's

black ship steamers

intent on knowing

the island shogunate

at Yedo

and it could still attest

that parting

as another armada,

floating on scraps

cast off,

pursued

a people's vengeance.

               —Charles R. Embry