The Dawning

Waves breaking on Playa Brava. Photo by Catherine Chandler

The Dawning

The sea, relentless in her give-and-take,

her rising, falling waves that seem to make

amends in silence just before they break

ashore, reflects the instant I awake —

a moment of reprieve, when every snake

I realize is fantasy or fake;

when life’s a bowl of cherries. Piece of cake.

(There must have been some terrible mistake . . .)

And then the crash. The undertow. The ache.

"The Dawning" by Catherine Chandler. First published in Angle Poetry Journal, Issue #1, 2012, as part of "Two Poems of the Sea".