Skip to content →

Beach Glass

“Absent one, how I miss you on this shore

that conjures you and fades . . . ”

—Eugenio Montale

A wall topped with shards of broken bottles

runs along the lane that winds up the hill

to this house above the Ligurian Sea

not far from where the great poet lived.

One of his lizards visits my balcony.

And that mysterious “you” of his,

during my time here, has become you.

I’ve looked for you among the lemon trees,

in waves flashing through canopies of pines,

in upper windows fluttering with sheets,

and on a small beach below rocky cliffs,

its gray stones crisscrossed with white lines.

And there I found these tiny, glinting beads

of colored glass hidden among the pebbles—

like drops of honey, and some between, the color

of your eyes, and two or three the pale blue

of inlets where foam has clouded the water.

from Between Lakes
Find more by Jeffrey Harrison at the library

Copyright © 2020 Jeffrey Harrison

Used with the permission of Four Way Books.

Published in Jeffrey Harrison Poems

This program is supported in part by a grant from the Idaho Humanities Council, a State-based program of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this (publication, website, exhibit, etc.) do not necessarily represent those of the Idaho Humanities Council or the National Endowment for the Humanities.