Three Poems – Kathleen Chamberlin

Tides

The waves break against the rocky shore,
Sometimes softly, like lovers whispering
Stealing kisses and caresses,
Unseen and uncertain under the moonlit sky.
Sometimes they rage and foam
And roar recriminations,
Aided by the whistling wind, swelling and surging
Rising relentlessly to batter even the most remote rocks.
Every crevice and outcropping is drenched and slick-surfaced.
The backwash streams like tears into the swirling sea.
Ever so slowly, the storm passes, the tide turns,
The ocean slides silently into sleep

Music of the Spheres

Morning is the divine poem
That springs from the poet’s harp
Strummed in silent worship across the vast heavens
Each golden ray promising days gilded in whispered possibilities
Midday is the ode to joy, the zenith reached,
Poised at the pinnacle of potential glory
While the poet warbles words ennobled
Enticing its slow descent toward the horizon
A sonata, slow and sonorous, laden with poignancy,
Lingering, languishing, ushering in the twilight
Acknowledging that every beginning must have an end,
The poet bids farewell to the fleeting day,
Not a mournful dirge, but a soothing and sweet lullaby.

Teardrops

Teardrops brim with memories
For years of yearning the might have been,
Grieving abandoned dreams,
For lives cut short in full bloom, scattered carelessly by turbulent winds
For lives unfinished, ended before their prime
The sudden loss that steals breath, renders us stricken.
The quiet mourning of bidding goodbye,
The midnight sorrow of a broken heart, captured in welling tears.
So much more than pools of salty water.
Damp echoes of love and loss.

Kathleen Chamberlin is a retired educator living in Albany, New York. She began writing creatively during the quarantine period of COVID-19, and her writing has appeared in both print and online journals and anthologies.