Fred Marchant

Poet and translator, workshop teacher, and manuscript consultation

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St. John’s Point

 

Donegal

 

After supper, we pedaled to a sandstone cove,
watched the tide-pool dramas, the opal periwinkles,

 

waving sea lettuce, hermit crabs nibbling.
We wondered together what it might mean to depend

 

on the flat, warmed rocks slipping under the tide.
When we started back, it was pitch black everywhere,

 

and I asked if you’d ever heard of night vision,
how the iris will stretch to gather in ambient

 

light from stars, moon, and the distant city.
But there was none or little that night.

 

There was internment in the North, and imaginary
gunmen hiding in the ditches. A fine gravel

 

on the road made the wheels slip. On our faces
we could feel moisture from the ocean, hear

 

the thump of surf, and all the little mechanical
sounds of gear-teeth, sprockets, oily axles,

 

the squeak of saddle springs when we hit the ruts,
the metal of handlebars that sometimes touched.

 
 

Fred Marchant's signature

from Full Moon Boat

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Poems

The Looking House, poem and photo by Fred MarchantThe Looking House Stanza
A Place at the Table, poem by Fred Marchant. Photo by Stefi RubinA Place at the Table
Olive Harvest, poem by Fred MarchantOlive Harvest
St. John's Point, photo and poem by Fred MarchantSt. John’s Point
Migrants, poem and photo by Fred MarchantThe Migrants
Fred Marchant, reading for Warrior WritersTipping Point
Fred Marchant reads at the Fine Arts Work Center. Photo by Stefi RubinThe Return
The Salt Stronger, poem and photo by Fred MarchantThe Salt Stronger
Bristlecone, poem by Fred MarchantBristlecone

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Copyright © 2019 Fred Marchant · created by Present Tense

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