116
2016
NORTH CAROLINA L I T E R A R Y RE V I E W
FINALIST, 2015 JAMES APPLEWHITE POETRY PRIZE BY FLORENCE NASH
What if I say my nightmares all are drownings, huge waves that rush up silent in the dark, Neptune rearing massive from the water, lost ships and sea-wrack tangled in his beard?
COURTESY OF THE ARTIST
Tell Me About the Ocean and I Will Tell You Who You Are
Northeasters shook our cottage, slapped the shingles loose, sent rockers sliding down the porch. Cliffs of water toppled and crashed while we lay playing Go Fish on the sandy rug, wrapped in our favorite stories of ourselves. At dawn, I knew its calm before I saw it: the muffled thump and shush, the silver light that ricocheted against the bedroom wall. We ran to give ourselves back to the water, hurled ourselves into its suck and curl. Or, belly-warm beside it on the sand, I swam my own inner ocean, floating theories of my continental edge. Walking the beach at night, I give wide berth to the water’s restless, sighing dark, the deeps that hold the creatures of my fear, dim shapes swimming below the reach of light. Still, arms wide for balance, now as then, by day I push against the giddy surge to dive into the wave’s on-rushing flank, elated as a child come home again.
The Sea (oil on canvas, 12x36) by Michael Rhinehardt
An Eastern North Carolina native, MICHAEL RHINEHARDT earned a BFA in Art Education from East Carolina University. He is in his tenth year of teaching art in the Carteret County Public School System, first in K-8 and now at East Carteret High School. His work is featured at BluSail Gallery in Morehead City, NC, and at Tidewater Gallery in Swansboro, NC. See more of his work on the Tidewater Gallery website.