Monday, October 18, 2010

How to Wait

The ocean waits
for the man to fold
his arms behind
his back.

It waits for the end of things;
the unspooling
of fishing line.
A hook, a sinker. Maybe a fish.

It laughs at white bodies running
like matchsticks along the sand.

It forms waves like words
on the tongue, heard
in the heart then spoken
onto the shore.

It takes on the gleam
of another: the sun,
that showy ball
of who knows what.

And it waits for shutters
to open, to catch
the whole of it,
never catching
more than a glimpse
of the waiting ocean.

2 comments:

Kath said...

i like this poem.
especially 'the sun, that showy ball of who knows what.'
Kath

soph said...

Thanks Kath!