by Harriet Sohmers Zwerling
Breeze wrinkles the water and one lone
gull sits on the sea wall, seeming
to contemplate the blue pleats below.
Three cormorants rise up and drop down,
their strange shapes, arrows in the sky.
One small sail seems stuck on the horizon
and here I sit, waiting for you.
High tide; bay sloshes lazily against the shore.
I, solitary as the distant passing sailboat…
My calls unanswered.
A man kayaks by, sliding along like a dish
on a table top,
and here I sit, waiting for the world.
Today a wild wind smashes steely waves
against the shore.
Alone on the deck I am attacked by air,
ripping at my hat, yanking at my hair.
The small flags shimmy; dance a rhumba.
Shake it, shake it, shake it says the bay,
and I sit here waiting for tomorrow.
Harriet Sohmers Zwerling iss an ex-expatriate, explorer, educator, experimenter;
author of two books: Notes of a Nude Model and Abroad, an Expatriate’s Diaries. Also a grandmother, awfully aware of the waning of time.