Tuesday Poem Blog - 'Shore Grass'

Shore Grass by Amy Lowell

The moon is cold over the sand-dunes,
And the clumps of sea-grasses flow and glitter;
The thin chime of my watch tells the quarter after midnight;
And still I hear nothing
But the windy beating of the sea.

From: Honor Moore, editor, Amy Lowell, Selected Poems, American Poets Project, 2004.

This poem reminds me of Stradbroke Island where we used to spend a week, sometimes two weeks, every Christmas holidays. This was years ago and the island was not top to bottom resort back then. We used to stay at Clayton's Cabins and the generator stopped at 10.00 pm so the lights went out! There was a small general store and surfies, who would frequently camp in the caves on the cliffs to save money, lived on milkshakes and hot chips from the store.

It was a walk along the cliffs to Point Lookout where there was another, slightly larger store. We'd buy iceblocks there and watch the surfies from the clifftop. Once I saw three sharks, quite visible in the clearest water, circling around a surfer. There was nothing one could do from the cliff except watch. He surfed in, but there were stories...

I love beaches at night - the shadows on the sand, the dark, glittering water and the track straight to the horizon made by the moon.

Do have a look at the Tuesday Poem blog this week which features an intriguing section of a longer narrative poem, 'Pen Pal' by Sugar Magnolia Wilson. It's great! I read it and immediately downloaded the pdf. Kudos for Cats and Spaghetti Press, too, for doing something so beautiful and then giving it away. Thanks, too, for Helen Rickerby for posting this - she's this week's Tuesday Poem editor. Sugar Magnolia Wilson's work makes my fingers itchy to write. (And what a wonderful name!)