With the evening sky deepening
like the ocean out to the east,
the first signs of the coming night
are clearly evident to those watching.
Landwards, the sky is starred with bats
heading on to eat in the poignant darkness;
the silhouettes of houses and towers light up
with the streetlamps and headlights at their feet.
At the lap of the land, the ocean surges
a paler shade of foam that lights the darkness,
with the sound of the surf on sand and stone
a steady murmur and an undertone.
At the Water's Edge
Drawn back, I lie again
at the water's edge, staring
east into the eyes of light
that mark a vessel heading north.
Such melancholy, soughing
upon the edge of beach,
such solitude, such a way
of being remembered.
And you have forgotten,
the passing away
northwards into work
and family your lot.
And I, upon another way,
drawn here again
too many times,
a ship at sea, night.
Phillip A. Ellis is a freelance critic, poet and scholar. His
chapbooks, The Flayed Man and Symptoms Positive and Negative, are
available. He is working on a collection for Diminuendo Press. Another has been
accepted by Hippocampus Press. He is the editor of Melaleuca.
