1.
Beach Fires
Newly divorced,
the philosopher revealed
he had been so eaten by despair
that on a Maine beach, with night rolling in,
he piled stacks of driftwood
that stretched into a curve along the shore.
Straight-backed, torch in hand,
proud as an Olympian, he ran,
bent down and ignited each one.
Purpose? None, he said.
But exhaustion left him
somehow vindicated, somehow clean,
as if each pyre was a small sun,
and he was the god that made them burn,
nothing more than this. It was something to do,
something to say if anyone were listening,
as if it mattered, as if anyone cared.
And beyond the susurrus of unseen waves
endless and unfeeling, smoke joined fog,
voiceless in rising spirals,
like censers of incense or unspoken prayer.
And all along the beach,
fires winked out one by one.
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2.
Seduction
I took you by the hand
and led you to a shallow dune;
being daring, I wanted you
while waves foamed and retreated,
beneath stars and the shadows
of moonlight among sea oats.
No one was near.
The whitecaps pounded in.
Was that pounding the sea or my heart?
Alone now, still I hear the surf,
see those pinpoints of fire
over your wide shoulders,
and I feel joined to the universe,
joined to you, who are
farther away than any star or moon.
Sue Scalf
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