Fred Marchant

Poet and translator, workshop teacher, and manuscript consultation

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Tipping Point

 

— Okinawa, 1970

 

Late blue light, the East

China Sea, a half-mile out. . .

masked, snorkeled, finned,

 

rising for air, longing for it,

and in love with the green

knife-edged hillsides, the thick

 

aromatic forests, and not ready

for the line of B-52’s coming in

low on the horizon, three airplanes

 

at a time, bomb-empty after

the all-day run to Viet Nam.

Long, shuddering wings, and predatory,

 

dorsal tail-fins, underbelly

in white camouflage, the rest

jungle-green, saural, as if a gecko had

 

grown wings, a tail-fin, and

nightmare proportions. Chest deep,

on the reef-edge, I think of the war smell

 

which makes it back here:

damp red clay, cordite, and fear-salts

woven into the fabric of everything not

 

metal: tarps, webbed-belts,

and especially the jungle “utes,”

the utilities, the fatigue blouses

 

and trousers which were not

supposed to rip, but breathe,

and breathe they do–not so much

 

of death–but rather the long

living with it, sleeping in it,

not ever washing your body free of it.

 

A corporal asked me if he still stank.

I told him no, and he said,

“With all due respect, Lieutenant,

 

I don’t believe you.” A sea snake,

habu, slips among the corals,

and I hover while it slowly passes.

 

My blue surf mat wraps its rope

around me, tugs inland

at my hips while I drift over ranges

 

of thick, branching elkhorn,

over lilac-pale anemones,

over the crown-of-thorns starfish,

 

and urchins spinier than naval

mines, over mottled slugs,

half-buried clams, iridescent angelfish.

 

The commanding general said,

“Every man has a tipping point,

a place where his principles give way.”

 

I told him I did not belong

to any nation on earth, but

a chill shift of wind, its hint of squall

 

beyond the mountain tells me

no matter what I said or how,

it will be a long swim back,

my complicities in tow.

 

Fred Marchant's signature

from Tipping Point

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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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