Jeannette Marks

On Leaving Eggemoggin

SEA-GULLS I saw lifting the dawn with rosy feet,

Bearing the sunlight on their wings,

Dripping the dusk from burnished plumes;

And I thought

It would be joy to be a sea-gull

At dusk, at dawn of day,

And through long sunlit hours.

Sea-gulls I saw carrying the night upon their backs,

Wide tail spread crescent for the moon and stars—

The moon a glowing jelly fish,

The stars foam-flecks of light;

And I thought

It would be joy to be a sea-gull!

How I would dart with them,

Strike storm with coral spur,

Rip whirling spray of angry tides,

Snatch mangled, light-shot offal of the sea—

Torn, tossed and moving terribly;

And stare for stare answer those myriad eyes

That float and sway, stab, sting and die away!

How I would peer from wide, cold eyes of fire—

At dusk, at dawn,

And through the long daylight—

Into those coiling depths of sea;

Then split the sun, the moon, the stars,

With laughter, laughter, laughter

For the sea’s mad power!