View of Dordrecht

Fixed light overhead
Delivered to chiseled distance

Of steeple and rigged mast,
Clocktower and mirrored wharf—

You held onto something
As music distant and calm—

Knowing there would soon be
Nothing left of light or any other—

Sent into far turning of inlet,
Mourned as a gift guarded and lost:

“There is nothing left of the night here, ”
He whispered as you parted,

Awed and jealous, desolate—
Distance exquisite as glisten in runnel

Of warm sand drawn back to foam,
Warning glare diminished to coordinates,

Far and senseless under a coast of stars braced
With oceans clear and departed.

poem by Ernest Hilbert
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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