The trees stand gaunt and swaying in the wind

Black silhouettes against darkening skies.

The wind whipped seas pound the rocky shore,

With an incessant frothy busyness,

Obsessive, demanding, anxious, grasping.

The waves roll in with exuberant roar

Then retreat with a long and mournful sigh,

Like the ebb and flow of warring armies.

Overhead, circling, screaming, a lone gull,

Like a mesmerised captive spectator

Of the foaming watery chaos below.

The trees add their own sad rhythmic cadence,

Like a wind driven shoreline harmony

In some dark symphony that stirs the soul.