Holiday poems
For the woman who danced
I saw you dancing in the ferry queue,
frowning impatience of waiting sliding
like dew off the curving neck of a swan,
as curved as your hips, as your song.
You shook it off and danced.
Step, step, turn.
And as I watched I forgot for a moment
the churning of my stomach like storms,
the distant windows of my eyes,
the haunting ghosts of my fears.
I saw you dancing in the ferry queue
and I wished I was dancing with you
She stops the tides
She sings at the sea,
roars to the waves like a mermaid
fighting oceans from the shore.
No man can hold back the tide,
but she could.
Time holds still at the tips of her toes.
Stop, wait and then wash,
tumbling over us and all is changed.
An instant of growing.
A moment of remembering
that shall not be forgot.
Pilgrimage
Though she is not always a cruel sea
you will find no warmth in her marble
foam, her stone waves, her iron
that cuts the line of the horizon
like a knife across steel skies.
Yet we come here, pilgrims
staring into her hungry distance,
to her pebbled shores to stand
and hear in her thunderous song
the storm-forged heartbeat of our land
Read “Holiday poems” on a larger screen, or in the Medium app!
