Waves of Words

Pemaquid Point Surf, Maine

Waves wash over me, and most of the time, I never get wet. I breathe the surf in and the currents electrify every nerve.  That experience evokes poetry, that gracious opening into what happened, retold to see it with fresh eyes.  

Waves of Words

The words wash ashore like waves,

That swell from far away and come,

From the rhythm of calms and storms,

The ebbing and flowing between tides,

Of images that rise to the surface,

And roll the words into something,

Never recognized until this arrival,

On my shore…

                                      With the gift of poetry,

that gathers what I used to just cast off,

in what looked like flotsam and jetsam,

of years drifting by meaninglessly—

until poems washed over me with riches

for a life of sea changes that bring me,

back to the beaches to find myself anew,

                    delighted from what the sea gives back.