Race Day On Long Island Sound

THE YACHTS Brilliance of cloudless days, with broad bellying sails they glide to the wind tossing green water

from their ship prows while over them the crew crawls

Ant-like, solicitously grooming them, releasing, making fast as they turn, lean far over and having caught the wind again, side by side, head for the mark

William Carlos Williams

The LIFE Magazine photo archives are now available online. (Thanks to Good Old Boat Redwing for the link) The photographs above are entitled Race Day On Long Island Sound. These photos immediately sparked a memory of a poem I first heard in high school English class. I did not remember much about the poem except that it was about a sailboat race, and there were similar pictures on the textbook page opposite the poem. There were also pictures of fruit opposite a poem about someone eating plums. Why I remember that, I have no idea. Thanks to the wonders of Google, I was able to track it down. It is funny how memory works. LIFE Magazine Photo Archives William Carlos Williams: The Yachts (complete poem) photo credits:(top to bottom) Alfred Eisenstaedt 1947, Bob Gomel 1960, Alfred Eisenstaedt 1947