Stephan Barile

The sea has gone mad,
White-capped waters have changed

To seagulls,
The sound of breaking waves
Turned to mockery
As the territorial,
Angry scavengers
Move to shore like guest-workers.

The wind wails
Like a childless mother.
Widowed, despoiling the sands
A willfully laid
Plan of damnation
In sheer numbers of granules.

The sky turns against us,
Sinking the sun into vestiges
Of the Sierra,
The Madre.
Floating the sliver of moon somewhere
Over Cancun, or some other
Vacation destination,

Trailing behind a bevy of stars
From unnamed constellations
And galaxies,
Swamp-gas of night.

This morning everything was clear
As the horizon, a careful line

Between the sea and sky in the kind
Of day for Christ’s crucifixion.
We mistake the moon for good fortune.         

Stephen Barile is an award-winning poet and 2023 Pushcart Prize nominee from Fresno, California. He attended Fresno Pacific University, and California State University, Fresno. His poems have been published and anthologized in numerous publications, print and on-line. He taught writing at Madera College, and CSU Fresno. Stephen Barile lives in Fresno.