On The Beach (After Storm Ophelia) Poem by Jean Bernard Parr

Not giving up
is what she does best
the sea gives up nothing
what is given one day
will be taken away the next
a watery accountancy of sorts

I knew all this when the
little boat came in, marooned
on crowding stones
packed there tight to gawp
at the strange craft
come from outer space

A little boat, so very little
I wonder what the sea will do
then with a hiss of shingle
sharp as quenching iron
she deliberates, nudges

and the boat moves to
get more ease on
those rasping noggins
the stupid populace of
unyielding beach stones

it broke free in the fury
tiny and tossed but faring
better than the famed Cunarder
cast here and ominously empty

this bone-bleached pod, unmastered,
scudding under a roiling moon
once filled with joyous shrieks
or was it that other end
a gull-wheel of unheard wails of doom?