Poetry Friday--"Daybreak"

Here is an absolutely gorgeous little poem by Galway Kinnell.

Daybreak

On the tidal mud, just before sunset,
dozens of starfishes
were creeping. It was
as though the mud were a sky
and enormous, imperfect stars
moved across it as slowly
as the actual stars cross heaven.
All at once they stopped,
and, as if they had simply
increased their receptivity
to gravity they sank down
into the mud; they faded down
into it and lay still; and by the time
pink of sunset broke across them
they were as invisible
as the true stars at daybreak.

From Galway Kinnell: Selected Poems, Houghton Mifflin, 1982.

Imagine seeing a dozen creeping starfish on the sand! Kinnell took such care in setting the scene for me, that I can see it, too!

Visit Mary Lee at A Year of Reading for this week's Poetry Friday Round-Up.

Image courtesy Open Clip Art Library.