Darkness Comes Suddenly For Brendan Poem by Charl JF Cilliers

Darkness comes suddenly, I heard
the locals say. I watched
the sun, from my own beach lookout,
swept rudderless at wind-tossed dawn
onto the rocks. Afternoon
showed me scattered, splintered light
washed up onto the shore, and bent
amongst the shadows on the beach
a small boy trying to shake sand
from objects broken but shiny
enough to be loved, even later,
by a sea-swept man who was once
a boy kneeling in shadows down
on a sun-wrecked beach one afternoon.