We board the Key West Express, a
big hover craft, returning to mainland
at the high speed of thirty-eight knots,
first in the smooth and gentle waters
of Key West Harbor filled with yachts
returning to port past coast guard ships,
and then into the open Gulf of Mexico
to be warned of rough seas ahead,
but, said the pilot, only for an hour;
shortly we dip down and bounce up
with salt spray whizzing past our
windows like a snowy white blizzard.
Then comes another warning about
thirty to forty-knot winds from
the colder northeast along with
rolling five-foot waves that all too
soon turn our doubled-hull ship
into a frightening rollercoaster
` with the banging and creaking and
cracking and tossing of our big
craft as though it were a mere toy,
until…at long last…we spot the
distant twinkling portside lights of
the safe and snug mainland harbor.
—
Richard F. Fleck, now 88, has published a number of collections over the years, the first being Palms, Peaks and Prairies, 1967 and the most recent being Bamboo in the Sun: Poems of Japan, 2020. His many books include A Colorado River Reader, 2000, Desert Rims to Mountains High, 2013, and Henry Thoreau and John Muir among the Native Americans, 2016. He is a retired professor of American literature and Native American Studies at the University of Wyoming with visiting appointments at Osaka University, Japan and the University of Bologna, Italy.
