It is very high here where the Pacific limbs blue between the islands among rocks scabbed with gray lichens. A gray crochet of lichens, the humble one-celled union of land and sea - alga and fungus - works stone. There is a photograph of the world, taken from outer space, that resembles this rock, a thing tender in its clasp of cloud and continent. Their gentle chisel of growth casts the rock to earth circle by circle, an expanding scab of life, and all their progeny are sand, as if the earth were an ever-after hourglass with this frail lace the only supplier of time. This pale marriage clasps the eternal and makes it tick, makes forever green hours of trees forever half-grown in the Pacific wind where the serene shadow of a gull lingers upon this thigh of tide. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...SPOON RIVER ANTHOLOGY: DAVIS MATLOCK by EDGAR LEE MASTERS COLORS by STEPHEN VINCENT BENET AGAINST THE REST OF THE YEAR by JAMES GALVIN RETURN (1) by GEORGIA DOUGLAS JOHNSON THE DAY OF THE DEAD SOLDIERS; MARY 30, 1869 by EMMA LAZARUS THE ARABIAN SHAWL by KATHERINE MANSFIELD THE CANDLE by KATHERINE MANSFIELD THE DAY AND THE WORK by EDWIN MARKHAM DOMESDAY BOOK: THE HOUSE THAT JACK BUILT by EDGAR LEE MASTERS |