Night Beach
by Francis Eaden

Water sliding up gray, satin sand,
dragged, soundlessly, back.
Rolling, crashing, spraying, then again,
a white, laced coverlet pulled upon the land.

Loon-white light of stars and moon,
cold points balanced on curling forms:
They fall, leap, scatter in endless dance
before a somber audience of dune.

A primal world held half in shadow, half in light:
moon-white world of pearl.
Peopled with crouching shadow shapes that cling,
like lovers to the fast-receding night.

Breathless sounds,
like skis, on powder far away;
Small armored bodies scuttling on the sand.

The crashing of westward rolling waves that,
like cymbals, proclaim the coming of the day.

Frozen in phantom light,
the little world must stay.
Night creatures scurry home,
like worshipers from mass.

A lonely gull hangs silent in the sky,
then falls,
and calls for all to come and prey.


copyright Francis Eaden 1997

". . .And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night."

Dover Beach
Matthew Arnold (1867)