62 - Divided Viewpoint

Divided Viewpoint
By Beatrice Page

Beating my way along the windy beach
I watched a small bird on stilts
who kept up a teetering pace
in and out of the sea's last reach
where the shore line tilts
and the waves burst to filigree
and dissolve in lace.

With an eye on each side of its face,
what did the bird see?
With the right eye, the waves giving chase
to its skittering retreat;
on the other side, me?

How then could it know in its race
against time and tide, where to jab
its bill in the sand for something to eat?

Or did it, like most of us, blindly replace
vision with chance, hopefully making a stab
at fulfilling its hungers by luck-or by grace?

Beatrice Page is a former professional dancer turned writer, living on Cape Cod. Two previous poems appeared in THEOLOGY TODAY, Jan. 1989 and July 1989.