Island

Picture a wave of thought
in a crowded room.

If an idea could swell in one mind,
and by it's motion spread
to swell in another.

Imagine the salt tang in the nostril,
the endless dash of the surf against sand.

The gulls, screaming their knowledge to the horizons,
the sweep of it: a blue-grey quilt,
spreading to the distance.

What voyages could be made on such an ocean.

I once dreamt of an island, like that,
piled up like a sandcastle against the rush of the tide.
The people there were carved from granite by the
slow erosion of centuries: the tears in their
eyes like deposits of diamond
encrusted in the earth.

For some it was difficult to find,
their boats snatched by the
teeth of the coral ... gulped down the gullet
of that indifferent sea.

But for those who could reach it,
a place was found.
A quiet dignity on the upper shores
beneath a slowly waving palm.
A community of silence
and unspoken words.

Added @ 02:20 PM to Poetry category on January 15, 1999