Poem From A Ten Year Old Notebook

There’s one bookcase in my condo, only one. Only half of one, really, the bottom is cabinets behind doors, containing mostly magazines, flat, and stationary supplies. I was looking through the thing today, and I came across a notebook from 2008. There was a poem in there that I kind of like. No date, and no name. As follows:

I stand offshore,

Admiring the beauty and the contour

Of the landscape.

The gentle sweep or bold

Relief of the mountains,

The color of the sky

And of the earth, the flowers.

If closer now by fate

Or by design,

I thrill to catch the scent

Of wondrous land.

Wanting so of feeling what I see,

To seize the day

In acts of brutal beauty,

But steering yet away

For open water,

Throwing now and then a wave or a smile.

I couldn’t say what I made of this thing back when I wrote it. Now I’d say that it was a poem about social anxiety. It’s probably best if poems aren’t about anything in particular. That way they can strike any reader with any meaning at all on any given day. Yeah, that’s best. Maybe it’s about a seagull.