Beach Grass

Tremulous as elfin lances Are the thin shafts of the beach grass, Blades and tufted points that quiver Eerily to winds of midnight; Magic strings on lyres enchanted, Strings that strum a lilting cadence Played upon by fairy fingers. Beach grass blades that whirl and struggle In the clutch of boisterous breezes. Needle tips that mark strange circles In the cowering sands beneath them, Tracings of a fairy stylus, Runic etchings vague and ghostlike. Tenuous roots, like bamboo jointed Delving, burrowing neath the surface Of the rough hewn sand dunes moulded By great Nature’s groping fingers; (Waves and tempests are her fingers) With their living network binding Crumbling sands that melt and vanish - In a woven web of fibre. Threading with tenacious purpose Mantles lovely and protective, Till the battered landscape brightens Smiles through scars and cruel gashes Smiles in glossy, rippling beach grass Undulating in the breezes Like a field of ripened barley. Beach grass, desperate, clinging, gripping Braving wrath of winter tempests, Scourged by sands that sting like nettles, Blinding clouds that lash and smother, Wet with driven spume and frosted, With the salt and oft half buried, As the tortured dunes roll landward, Uncouth monsters, struggling, straining By the rage of Neptune driven Stumbling, sprawling, lurching onward. But the beach grass, fragile, yielding Like a seine whose mesh entangles, Binds their heaving bulks together - In a fibrous web of rootlets; Gripping fiercely for each foothold Yielding grudgingly and battling Till the storm winds howl in fury, And the baffled ocean smothers Futile wrath in foam and roaring, Till the lowly beach grass triumphs; Holds in magic chains the forces Of ungovernable chaos. Beach grass drawing life and nurture From the sterile sands, a living Energy from out the desert. Hardy warrior, silent tamer Of primeval urgings rampant, Barrier to the clamorous ocean, Staunch preserver of the landscape, Not content with curbing surges Or restraining restless sand dunes, How you bless that sterile desert With your wild and pensive beauty; Cover o’er its savage harshness With the mantle of your verdure Till your patient, steadfast purpose Glorifies the vanquished sea shore.