Christopher Parmenter '10, winner of the Adam Gordon Poetry Prize for Freshmen
APPROACH BY SEA
I have seen you floating by
with fired eyes
and burning hands
like quartzite sands
halo visible from sea.
And should the fires bear you down,
the flares glimmer
your arms and legs
the coast should beg:
to have seen these lights upon the waters.
Night and evening dirtied hands
from diesel engines' smoke and tar
I do not want you to fall from me
without the glimmer of the stars;
at the turning of a moment's glance
the lover's dance
asked the course between
some one thing and the other,
a girl, ideal, or brother;
when all one asks is life.
