IDLING
The way waves fold into themselves, sigh, then
play themselves out high on the foreshore,
a man draws and redraws the crescent contours
of the salt-woman he loves to draw to love.
--Kevin Crossley-Holland
P.S. There are riddles here that I am working to work out; the images and unfolding of the lines draw me in here.
Crossley-Holland is a renowned translator of Anglo-Saxon riddles, a popular genre in the medieval period, among others. His own poetry, as above, often shows such trickster influence.