The Poetry of the Pacific, Day 5

Editor's note: This blog was pre-written. In fact, we are traveling on Tuesday.

We woke up early this morning for a day of traveling, in order to get DH home in time for his rehearsals tonight. You could say I'm "putting out the light" on our trip and this Poetry of the Pacific series with this poem by San Francisco native Robert Frost (1874-1963). If all you know of Frost is "I took the Road Less Traveled," his verses may sound quaint to your jaded ears, but in fact he was a modern poet who used contemporary English to express a range of often dark emotions. This sonnet captures psychological dread at loneliness and at the destructive capability of nature. Found on Famous Poets & Poems.com.

Once By The Pacific (1928)

The shattered water made a misty din.

Great waves looked over others coming in,

And thought of doing something to the shore

That water never did to land before.

The clouds were low and hairy in the skies,

Like locks blown forward in the gleam of eyes.

You could not tell, and yet it looked as if

The shore was lucky in being backed by cliff,

The cliff in being backed by continent;

It looked as if a night of dark intent

Was coming, and not only a night, an age.

Someone had better be prepared for rage.

There would be more than ocean-water broken

Before God's last Put out the Light was spoken.

Point Bonita light house; the suspension bridge became necessary after strong
waves eroded the land bridge. Click here to read about this and other lighthouses
around San Francisco. Photo from Wikimedia Commons.