Between the House and the Sea

My poem ‘Between the House and the Sea' has tied for First Place in the 2022 Voices of Lincoln Poetry Contest. I will be reading it live in Lincoln, California on Sunday, October 16th. Here is the poem:

Between the House and the Sea

 

Through water so transparent

you only know it's there

because it glints in the setting sun,

you glimpse pebbles gleaming

in the creek bed.

 

The frigid crystallinity

of this February evening,

like the light of your mind,

cannot grasp the question

of who you are, standing here

as unmoving as a bubble in an icicle.

 

Behind you, the house glowers

down the landscape from darkened

windows that tell no secrets.

 

In front of you, the bay booms

its wintry dirge. And even farther

beyond, the Pacific stretches west,

to spill unseen over the horizon.

 

At your feet, the icy stream asks,

Why do you stand here,

between the shrouded house

and the endless sea?