A Love by the Sea

In a fan shaped chair beside the sand,

(With your long, lovely, careful hand)

You write and finger pages, glance,

As ocean and the shore romance;

An ambient motion to compose,

For some sweet purpose, we suppose.

The rhythms here urge all comply;

Some pressing need for the sea to try,

And the patient land to give it back;

It is not desire that they lack;

An eye to open and to close,

For some sweet purpose, we suppose.

But oh, for honor, never us.

A literary love it was,

A literary love remains;

It is the writing that sustains.

Unpicked, we shall describe the rose,

For some sweet purpose, we suppose.

Robert Crawford

© 2000; originally printed in The Formalist.
Reprinted by permission of the author.