Grandfather would bring me here
when I was young.  He would sit
on a weathered bench, his hands,
creased and as veined as maps, wrapped
painfully about the knob
of his cane.  He would hold me
toward the failing horizon
where the ships were only lights
in gathering dusk, and speak
of the places they'd seen, things
they'd been.  But I, being young,
would watch instead the waves strike
an anchor caught in the rocks.
Sea gulls would circle, crying
as if his words were the words
of their song.
                        I come often
now that he's gone.  I sit deep
in rock and gathering dusk,
small amid shattering waves.
I watch a dark horizon
and long for the song of gulls.