The Gift
by Rebecca Pierre
The morning tide is going out,
Making promises to return,
Taking with it the silken mist
Of night, leaving seashells clambering
Over one another at the high tide line.
High seas have washed away
The dunes, made forays under houses,
Leaving stairs askew,
A drunken descent to the beach.
Wooden rocking chairs crowd together,
In the corner of a deck,
As if whispering among themselves
About the storms they have endured.
Where waves have swirled and eddied
Around the base of a piling,
A group of small fish huddles
In a shallow sandy grave.
No more a gleam of silver
Darting through swells;
No chance to meet a natural death
In steely clutch of Osprey’s claws;
Once shining scales now dull grey,
They lie drowned in a sea of air.
A flutter of pink gill, then another,
Brings me to my knees. The fish
Weigh in my hands like damp pebbles
After spring rain. Released into
The ebbing tide, they flip and flop
And disappear into the life giving sea.
Originally published The Pelican Post Winter 1996 issue.
Southport, NC
