Judith A. Brice: Before the Terns

It’s always the waves I hear,

the lapping of the lake

at Walloon— perhaps the first sound

my young memory held,

before the kingfishers’,

the terns’ bolting splash to grab

the minnows in their purling midst.

But the waves rippling,

their swish and tickles at our feet

when we were three, four

and grown-up five,

these waves evolved, devolved—

even now, revolve in my thoughts

to the roaring ghosts of white-cap

blues, as after a ghastly storm

they’ll choose to slam

tossed and shorn cedar trunks,

or twisted, despairing, pine limbs

onto lonely, whiplashed grass.

It is always the waves I hear—

my childhood, before the turns.

Copyright 2018 Judith A. Brice.

Judith Brice is a retired Pittsburgh psychiatrist. She is the author of two collections of poems: Renditions in a Palette and Overhead from Longing.