by Mark Robinson.
The beach is a vast and silent audience
of pebbles–pointed, ragged, broken and smooth.
On the surface of the water
a column of flames flares
as the moon hangs in the sky
behind us, waiting for something to happen.
A small square of tugboat,
muscular and compact,
squats beneath a distant bridge.
The day has given everything
summer can pretend to promise– warm ocean
and wet heavy air and thirst and forgetting.
So often the world offers wonder
and so many times I promise to take that wonder
with me.
From beneath the horizon
the sun sprays pink
the underside of a long and thin cloud
as the stars that have been there all along
begin to appear.