Lorraine Caputo is a documentary poet, translator and travel writer. Her works appear in over 180 journals on six continents, such as Prairie Schooner (US), ENcontrARTE (Venezuela), übergang (Germany), Open Road Review (India), Cordite Poetry Review (Australia) and Bakwa(Cameroon); 12 chapbooks of poetry – including Caribbean Nights (Red Bird Chapbooks, 2014), Notes from the Patagonia (dancing girl press, 2017); and nuemerous anthologies. She also pens travel pieces, with stories appearing in the anthologies Drive: Women's True Stories from the Open Road (Seal Press, 2002) and Far Flung and Foreign (Lowestoft Chronicle Press, 2012), and travel guidebooks. In March 2011, the Parliamentary Poet Laureate of Canada chose her verse as poem of the month. She has done over 200 literary readings, from Alaska to the Patagonia. Ms Caputo journeys through Latin America, listening to the voices of the pueblos and Earth. You may follow her travels at Latin America Wanderer: www.facebook.com/lorrainecaputo.wanderer.

TIDALPOOLING

Again today
at low tide
I carefully step along
the sea-slickened
lava rock, peering
into tidal pools

sergeants and gobies
frantically dart
beneath rocks of
retreating waters
away from my shadow

thick carpets of sea lettuce
mollusks skimming
skating slowly
across the stone

Further along the coast I hike
further away from the bay
Within a few dozen steps, I see

a sea urchin &
an exposed sea flower
grasping tight to life
until the tide
once more returns

a whimbrel calls & lands
a trio of lava herons
waiting still as these black stones
to pounce upon
a tender crab
or perhaps
a mollusk

a finch lands upon
fluttering leaves

& the black sea-worn stones
dozens of iguanas rest
after their sea lettuce feast
a red-black male
clumsily lumbers
to his harem