The Nereid: Thetis

Written during his last visit to the West Coast, as he watched the water's edge in Santa Barbara.

The Nereid: Thetis

She rose from the water to taunt me, to haunt me.
More beautiful than I had remembered.
The prickly, sickly smell of the low tide
pricked my pride and I was castaway
and back
to stack all my memories like coins
wagered in a strange game of time lost.

The cost incalculable.

So here I am, again, the green felt sand
like a belt around the girth of waters
where play the daughters of man
brushing the crushing waves
that echo into themselves
words whispered in times forgotten.
But I hear when I draw near as I dare.

I am home. I am home.

The bright horizon draws down the curtain
to invite the stars to dance
and stare at me, my hair caught
in a hot, final gout of ions
torn from the desert to follow the sun.
As I did, until it hid from me, behind the sea
to sneak up on me later, from behind.

The well-traveled breeze.

The bark of waves on sand. The hand of God
in every inarticulate clearing of the throat
of the Charybdis. This is where we begin and end,
friend and assassin. Lover and liar, synonymous
in the strange true tongue of prophets
who could only marvel at what I already know:
I will lay awake tonight and listen
to my lover call my name.

Over and over and over and over.


William F. DeVault. all rights reserved.