Sunday, April 3, 2016

Alpine Beach House



What is a red house with a
green roof, all shore-like and
windswept, doing atop a red cliff
o'er a small town in the foothills?

It abides, abides, abides with
no surging tides to greet its clapboard
sides or to fill its window-ears with cries 
of gulls, wild cries in grey skies and shoals.

Its white trim traces its outline
and though its backdrop is all alpine,
the red house seems on shoreline
on the cliff-high it rests ever benign.

And the wildness of the ocean sweeps
tawny grasses into motion 'round the 
red house, far from rumpled surf and 
water's turbid emotion, clawing at the turf...

But the red house with the green roof
is solid and sturdy proof that although
the ocean winds may blow, blow, blow,
the water's flow cannot reach its gnawing tooth
from far off coast so aloof from Colorado.


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