The Billowing Reeds Poem by John Lars Zwerenz

The folding ivory, orphic ocean
Sobs as it rises
With shy, azure-blue, somnolent disguises,
Evoking, with its waves, an amorous emotion.

Indistinct, a billow plays
Upon the swept-back reeds,
Which makes ones dizzy,
In the late afternoon, summery haze.

Upon the sky the sunset bleeds,
With a solemn, silver majesty.
And you, beside me, naked in a bed of tall, wavering grasses
Look upon the piers of the jetty,
As the thyme-scented breeze
Sighs as it passes.

Then the evening with its mysteries
Covers like a velvet veil
The hovering, foggy stars, the moonlight, pale,
And the distant, glowing bars of campfires.

Then, rising with the warm, red wind,
Beneath the airy, green cloak of a tamarind,
Your feminine desires,
Your feminine needs,
Become one with the swallowing, hungry sea,
As you recline in the reeds,
Gazing at me.