Wednesday morning on the island with friends

By Craig R. Kirchner

PROMPT — The way I see it ...

Coffee brewing at 6:45 and the ants beat me to the sugar.

The size of two pinheads, but there are hundreds,

in an important trek to their morning compulsion.

Four friends, two couples, agreed the night before

that the sunrise at 7:12 over the ocean is worth

getting up a bit early and is only a block away.

The waves are a powerful, that is regular, like heartbeat,

only louder and forever. The marriage of ocean and sky,

light and dark grey merge to mime infinity.

A slow-yellow progresses, the low clouds light bright white

and purple-pink. The crescent pierces the horizon,

nothing compares, there is no metaphor for this event.

There is the awe and the ants, small, smaller than I’ve ever seen,

so concerned with their sugar, perhaps realizing

the shabby arrogance of Pawleys, but not the majesty at its beach.

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Craig Kirchner is retired and thinks of poetry as hobo art. He loves storytelling and the aesthetics of the paper and pen. He has had two poems nominated for the Pushcart, and has a book of poetry, Roomful of Navels. He houses 500 books in his office and about 400 poems in a folder on a laptop. These words tend to keep him straight. After a writing hiatus, he was recently published in Poetry Quarterly, Decadent Review, New World Writing, Neologism, The Light Ekphrastic, Unlikely Stories, Wild Violet, Last Stanza, Unbroken, W-Poesis, The Globe Review, Skinny, Your Impossible Voice, Fairfield Scribes, Spillwords, WitCraft, Bombfire, Ink in Thirds, Ginosko, Last Leaves, Literary Heist, Blotter, Quail Bell, Ariel Chart, Lit Shark, Gas, Teach-Write, Cape, Scars, Yellow Mama, Rundelania, Flora Fiction, Young Ravens, Loud Coffee Press, Versification, Vine Leaf Press, Edge of Humanity and the Journal of Expressive Writing. He writes from Jacksonville, FL.