Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Still, Dover Beach


The ebb and flow of love,
smooth pebbles tossed
against the shore,
leaves unbelievers lost,
rough tumbled in its roar.


Pale specter of the world,
its shadows fall
on darkling plain;
White cliffs will still loom tall
ere crumbling once again.

And melancholy night
in timeless paths
across the sky,
are stilled by lovers' words
though long centuries pass them by.

For rivers of our time
still interweave
with currents past;
Covenants conceived,
collected like sea-glass.

One note hangs in the air:
the channel's cry
at end of day,
voluminous with life
before its sweet decay.

And there still hangs the moon,                                 
on Dover's tide,
its plaintive song;                                               
Eternal notes abide.
Sea of faith still moves as strong.

Old Sophocles could hear
the voice of time
within the spray;
And now the voice is mine,
lest my words be washed away.

The ebb and flow of time,
a love sea- tossed
against the strand,
retreat and then return,
back to the moon-blanched land.