Poems

The Light Today

By Peter Halstead

The light today
Flays my soul,
Burns its ashen grey
Like coal
Into my very being,
Into the waves
That sweep so darkly
Into the bay,
And seeing how
I’ve made my bed,
My goal,
In cloud,
In changing sky,
In the way the sun
Turns the ocean spray
To coral green,
As I say my role
Has been written
Not in the dead
Of night, the city
Crowd, the scripted
Scene, the harrows
And the haunts
Of men, of drowned
Countryside, the pity
And the tread
Of human tide,
The futile try
To sway the winds,
The cries of birds,
The very sound
Of life, to bend
That world to mine,
When, in the end
It all comes down
To frame of mind,
To wind, to moonlight.

February 21st, 2025, Kaiholu