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the tethering tide

by Peter Humphreys

the sky
was
as a
molten crust
iron founded
on God's
swift anvil
set forth
o'er tranquil
seas
in
azure skies
pinkening
puckering
clouds
alone
'cept
you and me
but
as we strive
on shingle shore
to stride
though
ankles deep
the stones
lip
lap
slip
slap
beside
the tethering tide
and
as we turn
yet love
yet yearn
a seagull
sits
and
ponders

03/25/2007

Posted on 03/25/2007
Copyright © 2024 Peter Humphreys

Member Comments on this Poem
Posted by Angela Nuzzo on 03/26/07 at 05:53 AM

!!!! You did it again, Peter! :) I love that introductory image of the red sky as hot metal being beaten on God's anvil. What a simile! And the way you contrast such elaborate description of a scene with a solid, everyday object (seagull) - just makes the fantastical that much more reachable for the rest of us mere human beings. Nice job! :)

Posted by Kathleen Wilson on 03/29/07 at 05:15 PM

This is a wonderful poem, a "tethering" poem, which itself is like a strand, a beam at sunset connecting earth to sky through sea. I love the "pinkening" delightful and fully expressive, inventive, adding a lightness and just the right color motion. Also the "shingle" shore is fantastic...as it leaves you out on a (sea floor) shore extension into the depths... and yet rings of "single" (two as one) and the "gull" in its own (similar singleness) "ponders" as you imply-- both you two and the sky...

Posted by Gregory O'Neill on 03/30/07 at 06:13 PM

Hi Peter. Love the: "pinkening/puckering/clouds". ...and don't we all have those beaches we strive upon? Not always easy going, amidst the sand and rock...but who would trade the view that we must be willing to see? Thanks.

Posted by Elizabeth Jill on 04/01/07 at 11:40 PM

You are so impossible! I love the alliteration! Just slipping on my ever pinkening blush!
...off to ponder yonder

Posted by Mara Meade on 04/03/07 at 01:45 PM

Wonderfuly descriptive. I loved the image of "a seagull sits and ponders."

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