Waiting for the Tide

Waiting for the Tide

Part I

A day the full-sun was like a spinning-top,

Yes, like a young boy’s first full-dollar

Hidden in his pocket deep from the eyes of many,

Young Ferdinand drove his Ford along the sea-beach;

When he stopped, prompt; then he trembled, drove

The face of the little Ford’s wheels deep

They felt the mud; the car with four slim tires

On a pavement of sand pivoted like an elephant,

Jerked him from the sinking soil, wet down, wedged, skid;

Then, the sharp agitation finished, thickening him

Slid with his young lady rider over the car’s hood,

Shot from utter torment and a ruined automobile

His body and hers out now waiting for the tide.

The day you know time-honored with no show of passion for the little mishap; grave

Joana

Moved toward the undressed mountains, the day moved to twilight, the fast pulse of

the sea behind

Echo, the slow wind came in across the icy stones of the mountain; the dead Ford

wedged in tightly wearily on shore

He felt for the girl; Ferdinand’s restful eyes came back from the wakening, and

curiously knew

The mountain’s cold touch, now sucked into the walls of bodies, its timeless ruin.

Inside him, pain and dizziness, overwhelming

Bloated, and a hopeless wish to heave, and likewise his girlfriend, again

The cold hands of the mountain passed, likened to icy fingers, passed and crept over them,
lay on each side of them, he slept sideways

She felt the weight of the mountain and waited an hour he lay still.

Then came a surge of whistling noises

The tide came in from the sea, to the edge of the mountain,

their bodies limp and cold

They crawled in further, like worms, between the groves of the two mountains, as

if they had rubber for bones, she lifted up his face

Their they lay, as if in a freezing chamber, with the tide in

She woke him from his callous sleep; he rose and made a face, the moon lit

like a lamp, cold like the sea, night equal to the days sun, in reverse,

Night and day were touching each other, ‘twilight’s in-between,´ (she thought): she

remained quiet, for it seemed a nightmare

For half the night long, she became a child’s mind and frequently sleepless, with the

other moaning

Within the gorge, the tide remained out, yet at its knees.

To Ferdinand it seemed that she was making love to him along the shore

With her, who said “Here we are, pushed into this mountain gorge, blood on your forehead, and you, you daydreaming of me on shore, dearest vainly…for here I am bad girl and all…come out of your dream and with your hooves of passion, dreadful passion, dreaming .” And he awoke completely, again.

Intense his eyes were, now upon hers

When the waves stopped, it got quieter, she slept lightly, and he all night through,

not a slump, or wink of an eye opened

Joana from her mountain view, likened to a window view, saw the cloudy light of the

sun rising deep in the East, mist overhanging

The lower part of the gorge had overflowed last night, but the waters were receding.