Triptych

There is a breath of time before the sun
Drops to the rim of sky, an amber tear.
Below, anticipating wavelets run,
Impatient to enfold the dying sphere.
From sea's first kiss till consummated night
Four minutes pass, but they are yours and mine.
The pale sun's drowning makes our senses bright
And we drink deep from shared and secret wine.
We hear the shuffle of each sea-rinsed stone,
And taste the ocean's vastness in the spray,
Resolve that mist into its droplets, blown
By urging eager winds from worlds away.
Do you with me in this transcendence share?
Or have I fancied kinship never there?

How many days we've met here on the sands
Both drawn apart from well-loved families
From home, to one who also understands
The touch of evening's inward mysteries.
Together we experience the same:
A wave of wonder, crested with cool spray
A gleeful joy with no familiar name.
Drawn from the life of each extinguished ray.
For those short minutes of the sun's late fall,
In innocence we share a thing like love,
A kindred longing for a distant call,
A hope that life alone is not enough.
And yet I wonder, do you understand?
Could I but touch? Reach out this hand?

And now I see I never should have spoken
Remained instead between the doubt and bliss
The crimson sun reveals what's wildly woken
In those who watch the ocean's certain kiss,
But words, and touch, betray the mystery
And show that all enchanted threads are air.
The sensuous belongs to you as me,
But not to this - the world we used to share.
This autumn dusk, the early setting sun,
Is paler, cool, a season of decay.
One day I let imagination run
And found I loved, and love has made me pay.
I won't be here tomorrow night to see
The sun go down.
But touch the sky for me.