At the Shore after Long Absence
By Merryn Rutledge
For John O’Donohue
I crest the dune to behold an ageless majesty
unfold—the elemental conversation of wind and water
revealing to the cliffs and beached boulders their gradual
transfiguration into grains of granite, pearls
of amber quartz, calcified fragments of ancient
life and slivers of glittering mica refined
to a ribbon of sky-reflecting sand that soothes
my feet and coaxes my mind to yield its busy
whirr to the simple sense of a sapphire sea
winking at the sun beyond a lace fringe
of waves that make a rhythmical clap, clap,
clap, clap with their other hand, the beach.
Copyright © 2020 by Merryn Rutledge.