‘Off balance there’

Gibbous moon

“Unheralded, the gibbous moon
arrives too late, if not too soon,
a goblet neither full nor empty,
off balance there, like Humpty Dumpty….’’

— From “Gibbous Moon,’’ by Alfred Nicol, Massachusetts-based poet

Here’s the whole poem.

Lines on a beach

South Beach on Plum Island.

“What if the earth knows longing and regret,

And no one’s heard a whisper of it yet?

Why is the earth without an intimate?

These cursive lines, in which the ebbing tide

Would hint at little secrets to confide,

Denote a frilled coquette and not a bride.’’

From “On the Strand at Plum Island’’  {Mass.}, by Alfred Nicol