Sonnet for Helen

I break your ocean surface with my breath
Rippling white manes, the horses of the sea ride out
To meet my longing, to witness a drowning swimmer
Suddenly restored, unsunk from dark stone depths

And the sea-floor pirouette; breathing out and in, the
Presence of soul, green flash of the scouting eel
In the reef around your heart, now a coral flowered
Garden where once the ships of war ran aground.

Tender of the Shallows and the Deep, Tide Keeper,
Your Moon shed her red tear across my briny heart
Calling her thousand crabs to the shore,

Applauding this ancient lifeboat,
O Open your wild heart wide
At the launching of our love-craft


kh 14.9.06



IMAGE: 'Byzantium' (1988), Bronze Statue by Erte available from Fine Art Site