The Sand Hill Review http://www.sandhillreview.org
2004
Sunset Sestina
Some deep force stirs at
day’s edge
here where land encounters
water
and the setting sun becomes a
line
of coruscating light
that
sears through the sound
of waves sibilant against
rocks.
Shadows darkening on the
rocks
hide where the edge
is no longer sound,
where the downward path of
water
has broken out the light-
hued clay in a ragged line.
A low-slung line
of clouds beyond where the
buoy rocks
reddens in the dwindling
light.
A gold band glows around its
edge.
The color spreads across the
water
like an organ’s deepest sound
that mingles with the shrill
sound
of oystercatchers flying in a
line
across the dark-lit water
to night roosts on rocks
draped with wet seaweed at
the edge
and polished by the light.
As the day turns from light
to dark, the sea’s sound
rises as it licks the land’s
edge
along a ragged line
punctuated by rocks
protruding blackly from the
water.
Half the horizon is water.
The sky patterned with light
reduces to insignificance the
rocks’
slow crumble, drowned by the
sound
of music at the daylight’s
edge.
Slowly the edge of land and
water
blurs its line in the
diminished light.
Darkness covers the sound of
waves caressing rocks.