Poetry by John Grey

 AS A BEACH BOY

 

The tern floated atop the waves

like a blossom.

 

The wily pelican

trailed the fishing boats.

 

I ran back and forth

along the pier.

 

I never did hold

a moment too long.

 

Until my hands reached out

to catch a flying dolphin.

 

A ride on its back

was all I would sit still for.

 

 

 

THE SEA, THE SHORE

 

I’m captive –

treating the blustery grasses,

the trembling brush, to my circumspection.

I yield, succumb to the coastline,

relive those old, never-to-be-forgotten

childhood moments on the beach.

Wind off the seas,

I collect its tang in my nostrils,

like information from the deep,

translated by the adolescent boy

who once combed the shore for sea dollars,

who strode atop the dunes

like riding a humpbacked camel.

On blue mornings such as this,

I’d venture out as far as the undertow,

feel its pull on my toes

then step back.

Back into now, when I’m so much older,

less accepting and more conscious

of being alive.

Meanwhile, the sun lights

the same old fire in the sky,

skin flutters near like tinder paper,

the aim of exercise

is to tan on the surface,

blaze somewhere inside.

 

 

ONCE MORE, SNOWED IN

 

Another six inches of snow forecast

Already a foot and a half on the ground

but nature abhors an odd number.

Somewhere beneath, these drifts

surety lies the circuitry of spring.

But the sun is vague on the subject

The temperature won't hear of it

 

Some days just feel

like every other day must be like this.

The memory is as iced up as the windows.

Flakes block every passage to a different season.

I have a hearth at least.

But even raw flame feels artificial.

 

It's Winter.

Bad news falls from the sky.

The world stops in its tracks.

Time's like a swaying pendulum

between day and night,

unable to midge forward.

Nothing changes.

Nothing can change.

And life is too short

to feel like it's forever.