The Long Wave

I love the long wave’s brown and breaking curve,
a billion bubbles percussive, shimmering;
how the power of tide incoming
shatters shells, leaving silence shivering on the air.

The sea seems angry sometimes in the wind;
sage-grey waves on blustery days
whip my breath away,
diminished to the horizon.

Shipping passes. Turbines turn.
Cormorants dry their wings,
angel-poised on any solid thing.
Gulls swirl and gannets thunderbolt
into the steely squall.

But most I love the brown-blue silk shimmer
of offshore vanilla ripples,
that seam of indigo stitching sky and sea
tenuous, where everything agrees to be divided.