I liked the first on best, Sue. You used Sussurus in that first poem you
sent via Arthur, didnt you? interesting setting to the poem. the second one,
though still on a beach, is a bit too predictable, been there before-ish.
Sally E

on 18/5/02 1:59 pm, Sue Scalf at [log in to unmask] wrote:

> 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.
>
> ------------
> 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