Santa Monica Pier

Santa Monica Pier I remember watching the ocean roll on the shore, wave after wave, crashing down on the solid sand and I idly staring back wondering if the Atlantic was as blue. I watched him light a candle and move in the swaying light from a bygone age. The flame flickered, so fragile, it leans and sways in the cold breeze My burning love is the flame in the lamp From antiquity--a pre-industrial artifact An oil lamp of glass from Rome Bronze from Carthage A terra-cotta from Athens He smiles at me in a flicker of light and knows all my past like a line from Virgil A chronicle from Homer An essay from Milton, a history of Herodotus And me, ignorant, knowing nothing of him can only quote from Ovid, Beowulf, Caedmon and Gilgamesh. The flame descends, From the nape of the lit candle, and we are lying in darkness on a spring night. Everything in history is forgotten and yesterdays are not so many as night descends, the lit moon cast in the glow of the lamplight of our love.