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Vesper

At dewfall Pipistrella brings
her silent flickering silhouette
to haunt the after-glimmerings
that linger on the garden yet.

And quiet overcomes the sky;
and shadow pacifies the night;
and indigos intensify
one lonely point of silver light.

Deeper stillness amplifies
the distant road, a far-off bark;
and purer blackness magnifies
the brilliance of one frozen spark.

Above a darkened hemisphere
where tired hearts lie whose day is done,
a single star rides cold and clear:
Vesper’s vigil has begun.

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Heard in a Shell

At wandering’s end, we outcasts of the wild
explode in spray where rock and water meet,
or spend ourselves in whispers at your feet.
Yet we have rocked the cradle of the world:
we surged across tempestuous hemispheres
and latitudes of cold pelagic rage,
upheaving oceans on our pilgrimage
to rendezvous with you, this moment, here.

For you alone our voices from the deep
unite in one becalming lullaby,
and bring beneath a grey Atlantic sky
the promise of a dreamless tide of sleep.
Hear us; let our each expiring rush
heal your sadness; close your eyes, and hush.

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Martin Briggs lives in Suffolk, England. He only began writing in earnest after retiring from a career in public administration, since when he has been published in various publications on both sides of the Atlantic.

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5 Responses

  1. Roy Eugene Peterson

    Martin, I can envision the whimsical sights and sounds of nature in these two beautifully imaged poems that purred so smoothly to my inner being like from a seashell held to the ear. The are as enchanting as they are soothing.

    Reply
  4. Joseph S. Salemi

    Both poems are beautiful confections of language. “Vesper” is mostly natural description, but with a strong suggestion of quiet melancholy. The second line in the fourth quatrain requires one to read “tired” as a monosyllable, or a disyllable with an internal quick elision. Or perhaps the poet deliberately intends a metrical alteration in that line to emphasize that it is the only direct mention in the poem of human beings.

    “Heard in a Shell” is more daring — we hear the speech of an empty seashell, but the shell speaks in the plural, as if it were the spokesman for all such shells. The choice of intense words (explode, rocked, surged, tempestuous, rage, upheaving) tell of the sea and its fierce movement, and this is what the silent interlocutor hears when he puts the shell to his ear. Despite its clamor, it brings peace and sleep.

    I like “Heard in a Shell” because it creates a poetic conceit out of a common belief (i.e. that you can hear the roar of the ocean if you hold a seashell to your ear). As a child I loved this fanciful idea, and believed it devoutly. In this poem the writer has re-imagined the notion in the shape of a talking shell that speaks for all shells, and that uses its oceanic noise as a way to calm and console a human being. And in doing so the shell speaks authoritatively, and almost imperatively, as if it represented a power beyond itself.

    Reply

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