or the sound of thunder and the clouds beyond the window set on fire by lightening.
I lay awake and thought of you, and wondered if you were awake too.
The beach cabins - mine and yours - were 20 yards apart,
and when I got up and went outside I hoped I'd see your light on,
I supposed you were asleep, and went on down to the shore.
I stood among the long lean boats drawn up on the sand
and watched the lightening split the sky and heard the distant groan
while at my feet little waves whispered. soothingly
Bored with its playground, the storm moved off,
leaving the sky to the moon's round disc,
which filled the beach with detail sharp enough to draw.
The warm Pacific lapped my feet, and I wondered about this world I'd found
so distant and so different from everything I'd known before.
I didn't see the moon go down - it went without a sound -
and when it took away its light,
total blackness claimed the night.
I would have gone to bed, but splashing through the surf,
my legs and feet were showered with tiny pinpricks of light,
dancing in the spray and sticking to my skin.
Shamelessly I bent down and splashed the water with my hands,
mesmerised by these sparks of life which pierced the night,
and died.
I could never have imagined anything so utterly engaging
and there I splashed and played ,just like a child,
the soft, warm night with her arms around me.
I wished you had been there to share this enchantment,
But if I had woken you and brought you down to show you,
I think you might have turned your head,
and with a grunt, gone back to bed.
And then the spell, so precious, so fragile, so tantalisingly ephemeral,
would have packed its bag and gone away,
and a memory that still delights me
would have lingered on to make me sad
and fill me with regrets.
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