New Year Poem

New Year Poem

“The Sea of Faith

Was once, too at the full, and round earth’s shore

Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled.

But now I only hear

Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar…” – Matthew Arnold (Dover Beach)

I suppose it’s ultimately personal

this building of a life —

ground, wall-block, hardwood, clamped metal

roof, about a well-planted

corner-stone of certain faith —

when the earth-plot shakes to doubt,

window-panes

batter in fear against cyclones,

some plump rat rots under the boards with the stench

of horrible news (you get the point) —

         faith surges like a triumphant vanguard

         of galloping waves off Gros Islet

        to spread its bounteous, cleansing surf

        all along the garbage-littered shore.

(c) John Robert Lee

Photo: © Sea at Gros Islet. J.R.Lee