Monotone with Red and Black

 

The gray sea, silent, its spectral surface

a metallic sheen of zinc.

The gray sand dunes, peppered

with stands of leafless lanky birches,
stretch as far as eyes can see, north
to Latvia, south to Russia and beyond.

The gray sky, a foreboding whisper

of endless Winter across these
mythic countries.

You wait patiently at water’s edge and

face the mystic Baltic, lost and wistful
in this obscure reticence, mouth closed
tightly against the immense, biting cold.

Your red wool cap and thick black parka,

the only colors that exist
for one hundred miles.