Counterpoint

It rained last night and tide has come and gone.
The sand is manicured and clean.
in the early morning, it seems grey and lifeless
and the single shell brushed up in the night pops
with a burst of color,
the only one on the beach, an aberration, a counterpoint
to the sameness, the leveling caused by storms and sea.

You smile, living your own counterpoint.
You think of her, warm still in her bed.
thrown together by fate and fury,
by brokenness and surprise,
an unexpected iridescence.

The waves break. The sun rises. The tide too, rises.
Tonight, when you come here again, the shell will be gone,
removed, replaced by new storms and new tides.
Perhaps new shells will dot the beach,
or perhaps there will be dead things and flotsam.
Fate and fury are unpredictable.

And still, you smile as the north wind rises,
sure that your color, your counterpoint
to the plague of grey in your life,
will remain.

About this poem

A love poem today.

The picture was taken last March at Cape Cod.

Tom