63. Hither Hills

Pieces of a day at Montauk on the east end
of Long Island where the island flattens
and narrows as it stretches into the sea

The sandy soil of
the pine barrens
and the crooked
little oaks that
grow from it

where the pines
grow scraggly
crooked but
right in the way
that the barrens
allows a different
sense of right

a wasp digs
a hole in
the sand

we came here to
see the end of
the world where
the earth exhausts
itself and the
ocean begins

the lighthouse
affords us
the view

its fresnel lens
magnifies the light
but none is needed
now in sunlight
from high enough
we can see where
we will never go

rosehips grow fat
and red on the
rugosas and I don’t
know what these
tall grasses are

at the rocky beach
the waves come in
gently over shallow
water where I would
expect waves

to break
to break
to break

to break
again

yet each wave delicately
unfurls itself and
retreats back into
the water a wave
being no more than
a surge of energy in
the body of the water

where dark ducks
float and I don’t
know what a
seaduck is or why

but we understand
the cormorants and
their hungers their
desires how they
gulp their food find
their fish swimming
in the water until
they swim down
their hungry throats

one giant once-grey
rock sits high enough
above the water to
allow a dozen cormorants
to sit until they turn
the rock white with
their constant waiting

the beach stores rounded
rocks of every size and
colors varying but in a
defined range huddled
around browns and greys

in those piles of stones
I found the accidental
art of the beach
stones set against stone
or held aloft between
two stones or colors in
somber interplay or
the work of shadow
enough to show beauty
in the accidental earth