To be Driftwood

 
This is just the shoreline; it's been home for some time.
Flirting with an almost invisible Mediterranean
in starred morning; pre-gulls. The decking aged and bluely aches:
as limited as memory; layered, split and compressed.

Too dense to float, too stubborn to burn. Inflows
are the only boon. The dead is never so dead in moonlight,
like an old love, anew, but not hopeful --

and here, in darkness, where sky and sea are equal,
bar sound, the sand is slowly getting deeper,
and the feckless wood begs each tide to tongue
a little nearer. Though beached, it knows
there is still time to drift.






*Note: Poem was written for an abstract painting in a Scottish art competition, from which I withdrew. I interpreted it as a damaged piece of boat decking.