BROOK EMERY
Poetry—'SEASCAPE III'
      

The sea's languid today
barely willing to stir itself,
the earth's gyroscope
so finely balanced
it stretches snugly round the world
like a blue drumskin, the cliffs
and beach gathered at its skirt;

just the fretwork of wind,
a change of current or depth of blue,
the faint impression of slow swell
returning from the shore
with predetermined purpose,
or purposeless, to show it's not paint
or glass

                and the repeated susurration
of foam that could be thought
or breathing, or the sleepy talk of dreams,
or so we'd like to think, as though translation
might unlock the secret of such ease.

A fishing boat scores a ragged margin
that's of no consequence
and little disturbance and the white swoop,
flap and glide of gulls add counterpoint
and perspective
                              to its impersonal poise.