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Refuge
Carol R. Sunde

Horizon and sky close in
as marine mist stealthily
swallows ocean, land, space—

no wide, wondrous worlds
in this cloudy enclosure.
Yet pleasures abound

without the expanse,
the demands
to see too much:

sand slippers my feet,
muffled foghorns croon the blues,
wind is my masseuse.

In this place circled
with soft nimbus walls,
war, disease, evil

dampen, diminish
in sea fragrance, solitude,
salt taste on the tongue.

—
Carol R. Sunde has had her poems published in The Comstock Review, Passager, Raven Chronicles, and elsewhere. She is happily retired, a former college counselor, living in the Pacific Northwest and feeling fortunate to be able to walk ocean beaches daily.

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