patience, a portion of fearlessness,
watching the waters go fearlessly outward to death.
4
MANASQUAN INLET II (1991)
No one can stem the tide; now watch it run
to meet the river pouring to the sea!
And in the meeting tumult what a play
of waves and twinkling water in the sun!
Ordained by powers beyond our ken,
beyond all wisdom, all our trickery,
immutable it comes, it sweeps, it ebbs
and clears the filthiness and froth of men.
5
NOT IN THESE DAYS
Not now, but when it is too late for gladness
will we remember these days of sunlight
and the clear water
netted with shadows moving and golden.
We will remember then, and the cry of the gull
will echo within us – gull’s cry in the clean air.
There is no trace of an echo now – in these days –
for there is nothing here to send the cry back to us –
low water and high sky and the free air between –
Not now – but when it is too late for gladness.
6
THE INLAND HEART
The wind is singing on the sun-struck dunes;
eastward the wind blows, and the level sea
runs with shadows golden-green and dark;
and no gull cries nearby, but far away
where the black finger of the rocks is laid
the white wings flash, the voices flash, and far
across the moving stretch a white sail gleams.
Here I am lost, hedged in with hills and shade;
and the bright music ripples all day long –
thrush and vireo, and in the dark
the harsh cicada; and my soul must fail,
starve for the sudden, final thrust of sea
over the earth’s curve, for the steady sun
that now the hills devour when day is done.
7
OCEAN
The birds that fly
in a shifting pattern
over the sea
with their eyes turned downwards –
what do they find
in the shining water?
Here on the shoal
the small waves crumble
bright in the sun
as the gull’s swift pinion,
green and clear
in the depth of shadow.
Inland the osprey
bears its burden,
yield from the sea
out of these waters;
out of this field
a shining harvest.
8
SUMMER NIGHT STORM
The ranting of the gods, this tumbling sky,
this wind-strong rain which pelts against my cheek,
the world re-lit by lightning, and the lie
of tall sea grass low bent against the sand.
I stand here, strangely still, with all the world
tumultuous at my feet, and yet my heart
is stronger than the roaring wind that swirls
about my body, taut against its force;
that blows my eyelids shut, that locks my lips,
lest all my spirit end its restlessness
in one wild song.
9
BAY HEAD
This beach is the crumbled bone of many years;
who can construct again the skeleton
and join the scattered grains to their old form?
This sea is the blood and tears of all the ages;
who can define in it a single wound or grief –
so vast and mingled is the tide of pain?
Yet as the night floods darkness and the day
holds us in light, we walk earth’s changing shore,
a brief path through the winds of good and evil,
and of loneliness –
Therefore the sand and sea await us.
10
The inland is not safe from sea;
here where the meadows hold the day
and tongues are of the earth, the fields,
the sea-mind still is safe and free.
Perhaps it walks a little worn
between the elm and peakéd pine
or wakens restless to the sounds
of vigorous, healthy, country morn,
or
