Waving

Seen at a distance, near the shore.

Not yet. Sea from sky

wrinkles grey. They

neared the wave,

paused, the sky

cleared bars of 

white flaming red.

Burning incandescence

became transparent,

rippling until the dark.

Now the light, one

bird, a pause. Chirp,

by the bedroom window,

this blind, blank melody.

***

Virginia Woolf died on this day in 1941. Her writing is celebrated for the layers evoked in her stream-of-consciousness narratives. Her work left a lasting impression on me, and I am eternally indebted to her for illuminating possibilities within language. The above is a found poem gleaned from the opening section of Woolf’s novel The Waves.