This massive log, perhaps a trunk, lasted almost a year before another exceptional tide swept it away. In stanza one "bronto" is short for brontosaurus. I have always pronounced "tousled" as "tossled." Therefore, in stanza two, line 5, it rhymes with "fossiled" in line 2. Another poem about tree trunks is "Tree Bark," written in October 2013 and posted here on 11 May 2016.
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Stranded by storm and spring high tides
A sea-blanched log lay bald
On the shingle’s wave-cut scarp.
Full eight feet long, its pumiced sides,
Rutted and galled
By the sea’s warp,
Were almond-stained like much-aged skin:
Stark as a bronto’s shin
It sprawled, forgot by time’s discharging strides.
Its root ball like an old man’s fist
With stretching fingers fossiled,
Described a surly claw
Seasicked by the waves’ throw and list,
Their slumpings tousled
On the jostled shore:
Distrained, that sea-tugged hand made sign –
A French “merde!” yes, and mine! –
Braced for the beach’s grind to crush its gist.
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© February 2025
