Standing The Watch Poem by Dennis Lange

Alone on the beach in the lifeguard stand -
Night watch, with no one to save on hand -
I perched, like a gull after begging all day.
I guarded the breakers eager to play.

They rolled as they sparred; they sported and spoke,
Lion after lion that roared when they broke.
One here, and three there, a continuous mob;
I sat and I peered on that perilous job.

For I was the guard on the watch that night;
Mine was the duty to make things right.
I sat at the center of the surging world,
The hub of the wheel, the speck of the pearl.

I measured the wind that blew from the sea.
'Steady, ' I said, as it flew to me.
Conductor, director, in front of the band,
I waved my baton on the lifeguard stand.

The pendulum moon was passing me by
With a one way sweep across the sky,
Companion in travel and teller of time -
Far into the night, I followed its climb.

Uneasy and restless, and growing old -
I had watched long and the wind was cold -
I left (my life spent) to a thunderous roar,
Applause from the sea for the finished chore.

I walked away proudly with my chest out,
Breaker of foam on a final route,
In search of the bed in which all of us rest,
Like swells seek the sand in a dying quest.

But, unknown to me, after I had gone,
The moon and the stars shined on and on.
The wind and the waves kept a regular pace,
And the sand on the shore remained in its place.