There is a pull
of a new moon
tonight, a yield
of starlight
that blinks
on, then off, as
only the clouds
command. Down
wind, the piers
that jut from
shore to shoals
are statues
with freezing arms
where even
barnacles sag
from dripping
ice. A neap
tide that refuses
to rest makes
whispers that
can still awaken
the waves while
along these sea-oak
shores, a jetty
that just a few
short hours ago
made a beach
now worries
the sand and
constantly tells
us as we struggle
to make a safe
harbor about
the gravity
of our situation.
Richard Luftig is a former professor of educational psychology and special education at Miami University in Ohio now residing in California. His poems and stories have appeared in numerous literary journals in the United States and internationally in Canada, Australia, Europe, and Asia. Two of his poems recently appeared in The Best Ten Years of Dos Madres Press.
Foxglove Journal 