I

Nightwalkers on the Beach

Sealift and hoodover of slate sky
On the sands the scramble of surf
On the upthrust, weevilled rocks, waves lurch.

Wayover sky the wind ravels clouds,
Our bodies in fathoms of air reach
Offshore to seafringe beyond the beach.

Seasurge and cloudsurf and we between,
Waiting for the big one, the seventh,
The arbiter of tidal strength.

And there is certain, tidal turn
Knowing always where it's going,
And we on the beach, what are we doing?

II

After

That long and upward saunter through the pines,
Heart in heart we walked back over the dam
And stumbled over the roots that lined.
The track like veins, the spurs ahead
Fitted like fingers and bled slow streams.

All that was gold of the day was mined,
The wind's cadenza through the trees
Was our signature in air;
But evening put a stop to singing
Though bloods's song echoes now
And still is mine.

III

Rain at Night

A Fragment
Like a dull ache the weather wakes
The old nocturnal spell;
The boy lying in bed
The wind knocking the wall
And the rain on the roof of the shed.

Calls back the dead who calendar my grief
Each with his sheaf of memories;
The man who was always grumpy,
Walked with a stick, kept a dog,
Died of a stroke on a dull day.

Lyster Paul