Travis Park is an Indiana writer whose poetry and haiku have appeared or are forthcoming in Modern Haiku, Ribbons, Presence, Wales Haiku Journal, The Listening Eye, Haiku Universe, dadakuku, and elsewhere. He is drawn to quiet moments, enduring landscapes, and the intersections of history, memory, and the natural world.
The sea keeps
its oldest stories
upside down.
Divers descend
through schools of silver fish
until the light
forgets their names.
An amphora appears,
its handles
grown together
with coral.
Inside
nothing.
Only centuries
of seawater
learning
the exact shape
of absence.
Back on shore,
the museum label
counts dates,
dynasties,
trade routes.
No one writes
that it still smells
faintly
of olives.
Salt Keeps Better Than History
At the harbor
the fishmonger wraps sea bass
in yesterday’s newspaper.
The headline promises
a government
that has already fallen.
He tears around the photograph
of a minister’s smile
without looking.
Salt outlives certainty.
By noon
the paper is translucent
with scales and water.
The sea has corrected
another edition.
Tomorrow
someone will fry garlic
in olive oil,
unwrap the fish,
and read
only the weather.
The Man Who Repairs Umbrellas in Crete
He has not sold
an umbrella
in forty-three days.
Still,
each morning
he unlocks the shop
before the church bells
finish climbing
through the square.
Tourists ask
if he also repairs
backpacks,
sandals,
phones.
He apologizes.
Only rain,
he says,
has moving parts.
Poetry in this post: © Travis Park
Published with the permission of Travis Park