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Seascape

N.W. Bilbrough

In the laughter of the morning
After the yawn of the hills,
Within the grasp of the sun
And the blue's bright caress,
He followed his tread
Into the emptiness of the shell of the sea.

Down the springing, twisting path
Which sang and sprawled,
Intoxicated by itself - Narcissus
And the mirrored, bounding
Being which sprang back
Tripping his stumbling step and jolted breath.

It curved, leapt then was lost
In the impartial spread of sand
Which was dead, sullen and
Grey within the blank indifferent
Cup of the bay,
Dead beneath the weight of the cliff.

A cliff living with crowded,
Coloured shadows shuffling
Across the slate of its face.
A face contorted and battered
Which shifted its shadows,
Silently scornful of the human absurdity.

And the black, bold rhetoric of
The rocks sounded his frailty
In striding strokes across his brain.
The skeletons of driftwood which
Were the images of his broken thoughts
Etched on the littoral of his mind.

There on that gull-loud beach,
There where the surf spat and grinned,
There where the birds bayed and dropped,
He felt the continuance, a vague thread
Of meaning which swelled to recognition in his eye.
The sea his identity.