Babette Deutsch




Seascape

Assembling ways to glisten, 
Immensity 
Is fresh as paint, and friendly, 
Like salt. 
Until wind pleats it, the water 
Spends mica's childish glitter. 
At the end of the jetty, erect, 
Domestic, 
A herring gull 
Is the finial on the newel. 
He stares westward, 
No more prospecting for dinner 
Than a saint on his pillar. 
Marking the tip of the cape, the lighthouse 
Off there is the size of the gull, 
Equally singular, equally white. 
The hush that sparkles in the sun 
Is noon.