Wave
Wave
1Something far out far off under asian cloud
2No line no limit but the invisible curve
3In a theorem of sea and sky,
4And no eye there to see no mind to prove it––
5Wind brushed that fluent sleep.
6Wind from the planes
7The cold euclidean steppes…
8Shiver and stir. Ripple and flaw. Clouded stillness
9Darkens where the invisible wind curls up
10The waking wave.
11Ripple and ridge. Curtsy and dip and lop…
12Out from the puppet-shift and sway and stir
13The quick dancer walks.
14The dancer. Walking. Till the stilted walk
15Steadies
16And rolls
17And leagued in rolling seas the combers come
18Wind-driven in a thousand miles of fetch.
19Sombre and towering now the ridge, the windscrawl––
20That slopes and forms and follows and casts back
21Self after fluent self.
22Only the form eternal (while the wind holds),
23The flowing shape through sea and sea and sea…
24Until at last self shape one moment one
25Break
26On the asking granite of the shore.
RPO poem Editors
Jim Johnstone
RPO Edition
2015
Special Copyright
Poem used with permission of the Charles Bruce Estate.