The scene at the sound was of light
hurtling toward the beach, dusk
turning the shore and sea oats granular

and vanishing in the shadows, alive
but crouched in a mode of surveillance,
patient for a glimpse of us, weathering

the closing aperture with gulls
nosing through the telescope of eyes,
waves splashing quietly on an August

afternoon, aligning the negative
of the photo fixed in time. Strange,
isn’t it, how the ocean draws us into

reverie so that history has no lineage
and, thus, cannot act as context
but rather a vehicle for melancholy

that drowns the earth and lets largesse
imprint a pocket of our lives,
the coming night, the grain of sand,

infinitude too vast for words, and so,
we stand speechless, gazing out,
imploring the water to take us home.

Paul Freidinger is a long-time Chicago resident who has recently relocated to Edisto Beach, SC. He has published over 200 poems in journals from all over the U.S and abroad. He has poems recently published or forthcoming in After Hours, Atlanta Review, Basalt, Bayou Magazine, Big Muddy, Cold Mountain Review, Confrontation, Evansville Review, Folio, Florida Review, Grist, Kentucky Review, New Plains Review, Pacific Review, Provo Canyon Review, Santa Fe Literary Review, South Carolina Review, South Dakota Review, Still Points Arts Quarterly, and Triggerfish Critical Review.