Poem: Maybe Just Given Back

You don't know how you are at the time,
but it takes a few years to be able to look back
and see yourself. Some say ten or twenty years
but it's less. I see the man in his shack still
frost on the inside of the windows in winter,
in summer, ten windows and no wind.
The sea was a few seconds away. Never blue;
always an honest grey. A homely shore for man, yet
perfect for him, but he didn't know that.

As the thousands of geese would migrate, they'd silence
every other bird and distant car. Sometimes he'd stand
near the edge of the water and watch them
diminish into a vague horizon between the greys.
The deranged wind would screw up his face
as he just enjoyed the longing instead of the being,
still knowing the pithiness of beauty
and the efficient plough of change,
but the sea is still duct tape, mildly reflecting
under an indistinct sky. I now see that everything
is taken away in chunks until it is gone, or returned.

Published in Dagda Publishing 2013