Poetry
Alan Basting
Beach Access F: The Boneyard
This is where dead and drifting trees come
to rest, the limbs bringing architecture
and peace to surrounding sands.
Wooden arms, worked smooth by churning water,
reach up, tugging at the blue
hem of a passing god. The prostrate
bodies rise on elbows, begging mercy
before the next monster storm
arrives, savaging from the east, slamming them
through sand and thrashing waters,
only to end on another quiet beach,
trunks and tree arms upraised, open
to the sun and gentler breezes, a hopeful
prayer rising, sailing into the blue.
Alan Basting was born in Detroit and grew up in northwest Ohio. He attended Earlham College and received an undergraduate degree from the University of Cincinnati. He earned graduate degrees from Colorado State University (MA) and Bowling Green State University (MFA), and taught creative writing, composition and literature at University of Cincinnati and Owens Community College in Toledo. His books and chapbooks include Singing from the Abdomen, Stone-Marrow Press, 1976; What the Barns Breathe, Window Press, 1982; Suddenly, Herons, The Writer’s Cooperative of Toledo, 1986; Deep Time, Daily Habits and Events, sponsored by The Arts Commission of Toledo, 1992; Nothing Very Sudden Happens Here, Lynx House Press, 2013; Home and Away, Finishing Line Press, 2019; Apples and Crows, Kelsay Books, 2023; White Fence: a Collaboration, Window Press, 2024; and Weathered Man, Kelsay Books, 2025. Alan and his wife, Cassie, currently reside in Lilley, Michigan, in the middle of the Manistee National Forest near the village of Bitely. More information regarding Alan and his poetry can be found at: alanbastingpoetry.com