Cooking at Sunset Beside the Sea
Earth turns its shoulder, but not yet its back
as the sun lingers at the edge of the marsh
watching a man and woman at play in the kitchen
together, intent on the right steps required
in the choreography of making a fine dinner.
The tide brings the sea back to the cove outside
where a heron stabs a last morsel among reeds
while a Beethoven symphony pours over the couple.
All this washes over them like an overdue baptism
of blessing and sympathy for, despite the aches
these bodies and hearts have accumulated
over years, there is the halo of this moment,
this beauty, and in it life is good.
– © Angus Watkins