Genuine Solitude

A Poem by Ted Kniffen

http://www.writerscafe.org/Tedk1946

Genuine solitude

is little more than the sound

of gulls and the sea.

When the wind’s restless razor

slashes the mist draping the dunes,

and crabs in their peculiar dance

scuttle through the Wax Myrtle,

then here, the sigh of the storm

muffles the scream of lost ships.

Which of these,

whose bleached ribs poke from the sand,

met her fate in the grotesque

grasp of typhoon;

and which perished beneath

the white moon on calm tide?

True isolation remains

the moan of wind through dusty bones

and the shriek of gray birds

from tall cliffs.

From these calm harbours,

the weathered homes of lost seamen

echo the wails of new widows;

on a night when a highway

is paved by moonlight

on the face of the sea.