at beach's end -
I saw her footprints daub the sand
no other tracks to show, just then
late afternoon, near August's end
a meeting that we hadn't planned
I'd left in spite of stormy skies
deciding ‘midst a whim, I’d go
to watch the tidal ebb and flow
and get the late-day’s exercise
I'd seen her car parked in the lot
no other combers there that day
the weather dour and dismal gray
(a troubled feeling, I then fought)
I hadn't planned to meet her there
my heart pulsed faster, thinking of
the chance of seeing my true love
and might just catch her, unaware
I could not see far down that shore
the mist and fog thick as they were
but still, I searched for signs of her
the bright red coat she always wore
I saw one set of tracks that showed
a-winding north-ward to the rocks
that place we’d often share for talks
below the narrow Prout’s Neck Road
I spied, thru brume, the cliffs ahead
high, stretching skyward in the fog
there, down below, our favorite log
where lay her jacket, clean and red
it seemed a grand mistake to me
no HER, and yet no footprints back
just pressed in sand, a single track
that wound into the darkened sea
I looked and looked for other signs
(inside my heart the horror burned)
but no tracks from the surf, returned
and then … I saw those dreadful lines
in broken shell she'd etched one note
"forgive me, love", so spoke the sand
I knew to where she’d gone then, and
sat down and hugged her fav’rite coat.
~
* This is a form I created called “Eodemina”, made up of at least FOUR stanzas of four lines of Iambic Tetrameter, each stanza beginning with the SAME letter, (of the poet’s choosing), and all in Enclosed Rhyme. I hope you like it. Fellow poets - why not give it a try! *
~ 1st Place ~ in the "Love Story" Poetry Contest, Silent One, Sponsor.
~ 1st Place ~ in the "Your Very Best Rhyme of All-Time Poetry Contest", Brenda Chiri, Sponsor.
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