Captive, by Doris Masters

It smiles at me with frothy lips
Inviting me to stay;
To watch it as it leaps and drips with sand and stones at play.
The gulls fly screaming overhead
As if their prey to wake;
They dive into the watery mass,
At liberty to take.

Its icy waves they touch my skin
And play around my feet.
Seaweed stops and lingers there, the hazard it will meet.
Who knows what secrets it contains,
On its dark and secret bottom;
With rusting wreckage, and silver bones
Of heroes long forgotten.

What mythical beings are dwelling there?
Mermaids, Monsters, Lorelei;
The tales we heard so long ago, in us will never die.
It’s enticing me to join it
In its never ending quest;
To swallow up the living earth
And leave mortal souls at rest.

The sea goes on forever
As it has since time began;
Guided by a silver moon, never touched by wars or man.
I shiver in its coldness
Wanting not to go,
And leave this green and pleasant land
I have come to know.

I can no longer stay here
A captive on the beach
Two steps back, and they will take me
Forever out of reach.

(August 2016)

Image by Dan Hunt, Seafield Beach MMXVI