Fan Ogilvie, former poet laureate of West Tisbury, is getting ready to publish her latest collection of poems, entitled The Berth.

Sand
Clean white sand
warm in summer
rolling wet
hot bodies
fresh from swimming
in the Sound
Frozen white
salted  crunch
underfoot in winter
wind blasting
eye stinging
unforgiving bits of it
Sand obsessed Arthur
the wave caressed
pitch of dune
shaped by fetch
and depth
Rooted in beachgrass tendrils
entrapped in the
timber groins we built
along this stretch of beach
formed the fine and
delicate line
that kept

John’s ladder lies waiting. A poem and an appreciation for John Moffet,who died June 27.

Thousands in the streets
March against injustice without retreat
To change the status quo
Agitate, disrupt and provoke
It is what protests do
Bodies like sand pebbles on a beach
Side by side as far as the eyes can see
Step by step peacefully into the light
While chaos ensues in shadows of night
As if armed for war
Police engage and show their might
Restraint succumbs by those enraged
Staining the streets as well as the cause
Yet, without such mayhem and threat

Island poet KT Herr leads a free, weekly online poetry writing workshop Fridays beginning May 8.

Keep washing until hope shines through

Ankle deep, soles balancing on eelgrass beds.

The off-season Poetry Cafe returns this weekend at the Martha’s Vineyard Playhouse with a new name, Poetry & Pie.

Every morning now he comes and sits beside me.