of tide and rock

Coastal Maine

contrast:

rock and water,

the flatness of harbor morphs into ocean

below the rising roundness of granite mountains,

bearded with heavy green forest,

exposed bedrock all age-spotted with subtle palettes of lichen,

I work to hold this beauty with my camera--

vista and rock underfoot,

tiny fruit, and flowers with frantic bees upon them,

here is where the land rises hard against the leveling sea,

so enticingly fertile with life,

though mostly that life is visible to us via the wheeling birds

who live on what they can take from the water,

a bounty we enjoy with

the exuberance of fresh lobster for lunch,

at the edge of the sea the moon 

draws the water up and releases it down,

a rhythm like the breathing of great lungs,

fortune shines on us, though the sun doesn’t 

while it hides behind a drizzling rain,

at early morning low tide, we explore tidal pools 

adjacent to a narrows

where a great river of water

rushes back to the sea

before high tide reverses the flow back into the land,

for a few hours salt water plant and animal

reveal themselves to us as we carefully pick paths

through shoals of shells and gardens of lush seaweed

garlanded upon boulders where they hold fast,

along with ubiquitous barnacles, colonies of shelled snails,

sea urchin and star, anemone and pink clumps of tentacled hydroids 

who look deflated when the salt water leaves them,

each step an adventure as we explore this small garden

that the lowering tide allows us to briefly touch,

the reality of transcendent color and shapes 

frustratingly muted by increasingly troublesome rain,

we work to understand just what is here,

we do well if we just experience 

and let awe permeate through us.

by Henry H. Walker

July 15, ’14