North Shore
This beach is all sound,
a crescent bay where
boundaries converge—
birch and balsam,
rhyolite and basalt,
pink stone and water.
Opposite forces
layer the shorescape
in waves and shoulders.
Resonance surrounds.
Listening to it sing,
I try to separate voices
in the cacophony but
hear braided together
the tone of the lake’s
liquid muscle and
the timbre of solid rock.
Each tentative step
on such uneven terrain
takes focus and care.
Round stones slide,
tumble perpetually,
crashing surf surges
out of the depths.
Echoes, turbulence
amplify yearning
for profound quiet,
for a walk beyond
our mad divisions
into a vaster space.
…..
This poem is from the chapbook A Time of Waiting. Poems by Charlotte Melin (Finishing Line Press), and can be found at https://www.finishinglinepress.com/product/a-time-of-waiting-poems-by-charlotte-melin/
Retired as a professor of German studies from the University of Minnesota, Charlotte Melin has published widely about German poetry, language teaching, and the environmental humanities. Returning to earlier interests in writing, her recent poems have appeared online at Canary, Flying Island, Tiny Seed Literary Journal, in the Northfield anthology Bridge and Division (2023) and other venues.
The Paddock Review 