Summer Place

Watching the combers, the beach grass,
the merlin hanging on the wind,
he likes the feel of “therefore,”
admires the levers and hinges
of what is and may be.
 
As if, perhaps, to persuade, to dissuade,
she brings shells for the window sill.
 
                          §
 
At daybreak she sits on the deck
with her coffee to greet the spectacle.
 
                          §
 
As if, perhaps, to affirm, to confirm,
he finds arcs of the probability curve
in the thickets of bayberry,
the morning fog in the dune swales,
the flocking of the plovers.
 
From the trail up the face of the scarp
he sees lines from numerous planes
converge on the marsh islands
and the far tip of the spit
where the sands continually shift.
 
She gathers thistles for the table,
sea lavender and dusty miller.
 
                          §
 
In the night a heron calls.
Gently the curtain sways.

Oliver Rice | Mudlark No. 41 (2010)
Contents | Elegy