Beaches

How did I get here? Amongst the crusty sand and screeching gulls Where greasy waves spill haplessly Under an unyielding, gray sky How did I get here? Wandering about in pained abstraction Looking at the rolling, dark waves Parceled out in hopeless piles That crash against this jagged beach Retreating in thinly, flattened sheets Only to return newly crashing waves The endless crash and retreat that tugs at me Soon vanishes to obscurity in the open sea Where all things mix and die Forever in timeless ritual Were only my soul to return so easily And crash again with all its might Were only my heart lightened To join those retreating waves Then I too could return anew To cut my little edge on this beach And retreat backward to the sea Where all things mix and die