Strandline

I see the long white curl of breaker
Kiss the shore
And hear the deeply drinking shingle shiver,
Quiver coyly at the sea’s embrace.

Wave after wave the water
Laps affection on the land in foamed caresses
Growling passion in a gravel song and
Sighing softly back into the seaweed deeps.

And I think of all your daily waves of faithfulness
That wash our lives, the surging tides of love that
Ring compassionately round
The islands of our isolation.

I think of all your unseen flows
When we are cold and unaware
And yet your deep protective love is there
And mercy seeps incessant through our sands.

For I am shifting shingle with emotions tossed
And flung like grains before the storm.
I am not rock that firmly stands against the gale
But I am sand whose weak foundations fail.

But take me as I am and love me
With your ceaseless, selfless sea of grace and
Mould my sand beneath your hand and
Break me by your wave’s embrace.

Then make me, one day, your own playground shore
where your pure waves might run and surge and sing
for evermore.

(c) A McN

Maybe the ability to see such things is a type of madness or a type of gift, but there are times when the interplay of the inanimate - wind, rain, wave, sand - is as delicate, sensual and delightful as human love.