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BIG SUR SCULPTOR EDMUND KARA’S DERELICT CABIN
Time and again,
On my daily walks,
I’m drawn to your home,
Your workshop lodged
Just above the Pacific.
It’s as if I’m called,
Pulled by the bare soul
Of your broken place,
A shrine of dark wood,
Quickly eroding
On the nerves of the weather,
In the slow mouth
Of time as it gnaws.
I walk down the path
Once worn by your shadow.
Today, as I approach
It looks even sadder;
As I enter one door
Another one whines
Through its old wound
To the heart-aching sea,
Which is crashing
Relentlessly
At this world where you worked.
Fragments of the windows
Litter the deck floor.
They’re as sharp as the tools
You once used to shape
Truths into wood:
And wood into truths.
The fireplace, it seems,
Is waiting for the flames
To warm a dead room
With a sudden hearth’s blaze.
You became a recluse,
Shunning art’s game
And the ego’s long thirst,
Like a castaway
On an island
Alone with his dream.
Outside, I pass
The stark KEEP OUT,
Which the dangerous
And determined
Elements ignore.
Note: Emund Kara, sculptor, is particularly famous for his nude sculpture of Elizabeth Taylor, which is featured
in the film The Sandpiper, starring her and Richard Burton.
Peter Thabit Jones
Published in POEMS FROM A CABIN ON BIG SUR by Peter Thabit Jones, 2011
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