Undertow

Ripping tides,

throwing horses,

hurling seabirds to the sky,

thrashing rock into sand, wrecking

the abandoned homes of limpets and clams,

reducing it all to grit and foam,

beaching itself in exhaustion,

receding;

the sand dries,

the rock stands

and starfish wait like wishes

for the next rising tide: such is my prayer;

beware of the undertow.

It has a warrant of its own.

About Rosalind C Hughes

Rosalind C Hughes is a priest and author living near the shores of Lake Erie. After growing up in England and Wales, and living briefly in Singapore, she is now settled in Ohio. She serves an Episcopal church just outside Cleveland. Rosalind is the author of A Family Like Mine: Biblical Stories of Love, Loss, and Longing , and Whom Shall I Fear? Urgent Questions for Christians in an Age of Violence, both from Upper Room Books. She loves the lake, misses the ocean, and is finally coming to terms with snow.
This entry was posted in poetry, prayer. Bookmark the permalink.

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s