thirty-eight

thirty eight 
october 1994, beijing

Shipwreck timbers in Nun Mill Bay cc-by-sa2.0 – © Walter Baxter – geograph.org.ukp3507664

eighteen
i wrote of my ‘unusual’ age
a wind blowing straight out
of the sunset into my eye
			into my heart
			a mood of the sea.

thirty-eight
 land-locked  on days
a clear sky falls to me
i remember the sea
i came from

how the sand’s shaped round
 beached timbers left

ribs  keel  of an old  s h  i     p
become a strangeness of the
				shore

Copyright © 2021 Peter Le Baige. All Rights Reserved

The music for the reading is from the ‘Largo’ movement of Cello Sonata Op. 40 (1934) by Dimiti Shostakovich, performed here by the composer himself on piano and Mstislav Rostropovich on cello.