Am meisten gelesen ▸
Sara Teasdale
The birds are gathering over the dunes,
Swerving and wheeling in shifting flight,
A thousand wings sweep darkly by
Over the dunes and out of sight.
Why did you bring me down to the sea
With the gathering birds and the fish-hawk flying,
The tide is low and the wind is hard,
Nothing is left but the old year dying.
I wish I were one of the gathering birds,
Two sharp black wings would be good for me--
When nothing is left but the old year dying,
Why did you bring me down to the sea?
No matter what I say,
All that I really love
Is the rain that flattens on the bay,
And the eel-grass in the cove;
The jingle-shells that lie and bleach
At the tide-line, and the trace
Of higher tides along the beach:
Nothing in this place.
in order to understand
I go under and under and under
I go in one ear
and out the other
I go with the tide
home to bed
my only work is to look
to look after
the tide
serving a sea I keep
the noon till night
I let be
I am the thin
fin in the tide
to point is better than to impose
excuse me but I must find
as much time as the weather
to let be
will I keep my body
after I find myself
I know no reason for my one-eyed
solicitor and his pedantry
will I be present and able
to follow my business
like the night tide rising
into the kitchen
The tide went from ship to ship
like a captain at the tavern
calling at a room
where there was infinite cake—
water in the reeds,
a voyage into some bed.
dancing out of fear
is a great disorder
water going out with the tide
green and cold as old meat
we danced and broke
to be less like God
where the dog threw up
at the edge of the road
early morning gulls
the incoming tide
a ground beetle rotates
on its back
through a gap in the hedge
as we flash past
a partridge and her chicks
village museum
retired fishermen gaze
at their old nets
rain in the campground
a girl hops back to her tent
on one foot
the sun comes out
High tide,
the ocean shifts gears…
withdrawing sand
Floodtide sinks the sandbar.
Only waves faltering out of rhythm
show where it was.
Currents gnaw debris free from banks
for burial in the black mud of the marsh.
Idling in the pentacle of an old army tent
I would have the green heat speak
of why it flows so close under the earth,
making my shadow blur.
But the wind rising is enough, all afternoon
it has me
thinking what a wind thinks
miles past land.
Through bushes half obscured, a marble slab
Peers out like a pale face. Inscribed upon
Its weathered surface that the lichen growth
And winter’s storms have blurred, a few brief words
The curious eye may spell with labored care.
To “H” and “M” - perhaps - and the terse phrase
So haunting in its stark simplicity
And pathos, - “Lost at sea.” The changeless gulfs
Of ocean knew the dead man mentioned here
Where bushes riot o’er an empty grave,
But what old friend remembers him today?
Ofttimes, no doubt, upon the wet sea sand
He traced his name in childhood, while the waves
Erased the halting script. Another hand
Has etched that name in form more durable;
But year by year, the ceaseless ebb and flow