All week, in this rented house,
sea spray and whispers of wind
weave through the eucalypts,
like a Sondheim melody.
Through the pewter leaves
the sea glimpsed from the wooden deck
is, at times, teal silk.
Other days it is grey.
Longing stirs like waves
about to break on the shore
and sometimes they lift
and swell like hope,
as they pound the sand.
From this wooden deck
far above the beach, the sand
has lost its power to cling and
irritate like problems unresolved.
Other times the waves rise and crest,
only to evaporate,
the way dreams do upon waking.
But I know, when I go home,
the sequin of sea spray will linger
on my eyelids, sleek
and beguiling as a promise.
© November 2002 Dale Harcombe
First published in My cat cannot have friends in Australia, the anthology of the 2004 Wollongong poetry workshop.
