Darkling

As night drops from the edge of dawn,
his silhouette rolls out from the sea,
curling in the surf across the horizon,
ripping blue water from cold sky free.

Kite-strung, he is the primeval child
tamed of brutal wind and ocean rush,
breathing in salt, drinking in the wild
sea spray, feeding on swells and hush.

And as things catch that divine hour,
night shade warms slowly into gold,
like a fine man growing ever younger
the more the world turns a new day old.

Gently thickening, his wind-forged body
bottles in the stars and escaping night;
with sun-bared skin he is starkly darkly
in the milky foam and the rising firelight.

Toes sunk deep in the sand, I am stunned
that half the earth gazes at an empty vault
until my darkling spills his purpling band
of a thousand starry grains of salt.

// 30 Mar 2017