Seahenge
The quartered moon, the lid upon its eye is looking
at the seahenge, the submerged sunken ring
its spikes appear, a ruined forest shows its teeth
the sea a cowl upon its rank defiled carnality
where blood mixed bitter with the salty breeze
and upturned roots defy the meaning of a tree
the sigh of tide, the shingles bleak with baltic beads
the agates, ambers, churned to frosted uniformity
to bleed, commingle sand and sea , the pagan bride
when hands were words, the meaning lost, the mudra hides
the bond between, the rotting headland out of reach
the ruined breathy beach where lovers lie and lie again
washed by ebb and flow and in the winter, brackish ice
on bending reeds - the spindrift veils the site of sacrifice
as though a kindness entered here, where only death
spoke to make the seasons come and come again
the pacts and promises to stay and stay as one
there is no one now, except the break, monotonous break
the wracks are stranded, the marrams list and keel
and sanderlings pick at dejected flotsam, razor shells
as restless shoppers pick at shelves and finding nothing new
go home - the curlew calls to wandering babies, go home go home
go home, she cries. No answer. The drab disrobing sea
prostrates itself in supplication before the matting clouds
if mermaids cry, then they cry here. Their saline mouths
gasping in the dreary sunlight, wind picking up their sticky hair
to drift upon the shore, wish you were here, wish you were here
when half an afternoon spread out before the totes meer
the sea henge staking memory to shore, an augury uncovered
its upright bones prop up the lost, the sweet, the drowned
as lovers fallen on hard times renew their vows and handfast
despite the prophecy, go home with faces set, forget the past
the keenly tempered bladed arctic blast, and warm themselves
with white romantic dunes and misremembered waves.
