To a Minor Goddess

The South Atlantic, Uruguay. Photo by Catherine Chandler, January 2013

To a Minor Goddess

Wave on wave all heaving and arch and spillage;

blue and green and grey overlaid with silver.

Christmas Day — my saviour the South Atlantic.

            Triumph. Surrender.

           

All my gods have failed me, yet Achelois,

you have watched me wavering in the billows;

you have heard me weeping the wail of seagulls,

            and you have answered:

Do not look for eyes in the dancing diamonds;

do not long for lullabies in the breakers;

do not lend  more tears to the salt of oceans’

             flotsam and jetsam.

Listen for the crash. See the string of seafoam

lace that hems the sand with a hush and whisper.

Silence. Nothing. Everything. Constellations.

            Guardian angels.        

"To a Minor Goddess" by Catherine Chandler. First published in Angle Poetry Journal, Issue 1, 2012