Fantasy on a Theme of the Sea

Categories Poetry0 Comments

Night’s gloved hand roused me, touching my feverish brow

And filled me with a thousand waking longings –

And as if led by the great hand of sleep,

I wandered with my broken thoughts

As if barefoot, pulled by the tide –

To stand at the water’s edge

Like some painted, strange figurehead,

Pale in the sea’s shadows,

My face against the silence,

‘Tis I and the rain here together,

Entwined in this moment.

A boat moored nearby turned over in its sleep,

And the moon’s sweet face

Peered from the windows of the fishermen’s cottages.

The silence was filled with my life,

As I stood there,

And felt the longing of the waiting pages, the poised pen,

The desk all in darkness.

All these things that had gone into my hand –

The crying of the gulls and the sea’s restless, grey soul,

Upon these shores, I strew words in return,

Sowed them like seeds

To take quiet root and burgeon upon your sands –

Or be collected like shells

By the local children at dawn.

 

© Elizabeth Jane Timms 2019

If you enjoyed Fantasy on a Theme of the Sea you can read more of our Cornish themed poems hereYou can also follow us on Twitter and Facebook. Join us next month for Elizabeth’s next offering.

Title Image credit: Keven Law from Los Angeles, USA [CC BY-SA 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)]

Elizabeth Jane Timms
Elizabeth Jane Timms is a royal historian, freelance writer, research professional and poet, based in Oxford. She is a member of the Oxford Writers' Circle and the University of Oxford Poetry Society. She writes for journals, magazines, newsletters and the web. She divides her time between Oxford and London.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.