Vernie Lynn DeMille

Down by the Shoreline

By Vernie Lynn DeMille

Down by the shoreline
Down by the sea
The sky meets the water,
The sand, and me.

 

Down where the ships
Sail out from the quay
And race for berths
In lands far away,

 

I stand in the breezes
That rush over the foam
Close my eyes and listen
To the creak and groan

 

Of the decks that yesteryear
Saw the sun in Rome,
Agean sky, and sand
With Pharoahs entombed.

 

I run to the end
Of the wooden pier
Wave goodbye to the masts,
The rigging, and fear

 

That they will see a world
I will never see,
Of bright spices, wild sounds,
And cerulean seas.

 

A world where magic,
Old and deep,
Swims in the waves
And mermaids sleep

 

On beds of shell
With pearls in their hair
And ghosts of pirates
Keep watch o’er them there.

 

And I dream myself out
On the bowsprit: brave,
Unheeding of clouds,
And gales, and waves

 

As tall as mountains,
Far away from land:
Racing the storms,
And the winds demands.

 

I dream myself far
From my sheltered bay
Out over the crash
Of the waves and the spray

 

Of the sea.
And back flows the mist
With the sound of the horn,
Deeply beckoning, a sailor’s wish,

 

To dream a deeper
Shade of blue,
Than the sky ever holds
And be truer than true,

 

To a guiding star,

 

That begs “Come away,
Come away with me.
Touch the sky, the sand
The wind and the sea.”

 

I stand on the shore,
Secure on the land,
And the tide rushes out
From where I stand

 

With sand that falls,
From these uncharted things:
my fingers. Small, adorned
By scars and one ring,

 

Grasping tightly, clinging,
To what is known,
And yearning, such hunger,
For water, clouds and fields unsown.

 

But the hearth it calls
And I love the sound
Of laughter, of friendship
Of love without bounds.

 

If I could just be two travelers
And go many ways,
Be the one who sees,
AND the one who stays,

 

My heart wouldn’t break
For the want to be whole.
I’d have trails underfoot
And your love in my soul.

 

With your hand in mine
As we race the sun
Where two paths merge
And become gloriously one.

 

Then the uncharted seas
Would be our natal foam
And foreign shores
The sod we call home.

 

And the newest land
I’d ever find
Would be in your eyes,
Your smile, your mind.

 

Come, my love,
Take my hand and be
One with the water,
The sky, and me.

 

 

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