Performed by Val Cole

Get to know the poet:

1) What is the theme of your poem?

I grew up on the Chesapeake Bay, swimming it its waters and sailing with my
dad. This poem attempts to capture ot only what it meant, but how I learned to respect it.

2) What motivated you to write this poem?

After living in different states, I finally came home to the Bay and I wanted to create something that reflected that.

3) How long have you been writing poetry?

More than 20 years.years

4) If you could have dinner with one person (dead or alive), who would that be?

This is a tough question. It’s nearly impossible to choose. I’d have to
say it would be a writer, but which one? A poet like T.S. Eliot? Or one
of my favorite contemporary writers, Greg Iles? Honestly, I cannot choose.

5) What influenced you to submit to have your poetry performed by a professional actor? I have never heard onne of my poems read aloud. Now, I wish I had done this sooner!

6) Do you write other works? scripts? Short Stories? Etc..?

I mostly write poetry, but I have written a few small things such as a
children’s book, and have attempted MANY novels, all yet to be completed.

7) What is your passion in life?

Love. Freedom. Equality. The belief that we are all human and no one person is better than another. A wish for peace, a desire to put all of this in
words every single day.

—–
POEM:

We lived two hundred yards from the Chesapeake Bay,
close enough to hear it breathing in the dark,
close enough that salt was in our blood
before we ever knew the word for it.
Spring came and we ran barefoot over cold sand.
Summer turned the bay to hammered gold.
Autumn brought us storms we stood inside of.
Winter, we went anyway — we were bold.
We dug our castles, knowing they would fall.
We laid out flat and worshipped the sun.
We sailed on days when the wind was almost nothing.
We swam in days when the chop was serious.
Our father was always there with a lesson
Reminding us we were friends with a wild thing.
He said: the water never gets tired.
Remember that, and nothing else matters.
You may grow weary. You may want to stop.
Your arms will feel weak and you may be crying,
The tide makes no allowance for your courage.
Respect the wave before you choose to fight.
We learned to read the pull beneath the surface,
to trust the tides but never trust them fully,
to love the water the way you love a wild thing.