Posts Tagged west

Posted by David Selzer in Poetry on November 28th, 2010

The rain has stopped. We can hear only the wind

and a swollen stream – hidden beneath

the high moor’s golden fern – rush through a culvert

under the road, which glistens, after the shower,

in an unexpected shaft of sunlight.

Rain clouds are blackening the mountains

to the west but northwards, beyond bracken

and gorse that stretches seemingly to land’s edge,

through a gap in the hills, we can see the sea,

a sunny blue, and a white ship sailing east –

too far away to recognise her flags.

Chance has brought us here as winter comes. Love

stays us against the dark.

Posted by David Selzer in Poetry on July 31st, 2010

The tide is at its ebb. Late sun quick-silvers

the narrowed estuary, where river and sea

conflict and oyster catchers race upstream.

An ice cream van’s jingle jangle sounds

across the almost empty sands. ‘O sole

mio’… And you are suddenly there –

aged three – digging with purpose into the dusk.

Your daughter – that longed for, longed for joy –

already strives unprompted towards the sun,

scrabbling beyond the bounds of her play mat!

‘…n’aria serena doppo na tempesta!…’

How calm you are, how fulfilled with love!

As we leave the shore for home, mute swans

fly west – their thrilling wing beats song enough.

Somewhere before us, echoing through the streets,

the ice cream van calls: ‘O sole, sole mio.’

David Selzer