Back in April we went to Montauk for the weekend and got a fairly warm day, perfect for some beach hikes through the marshes on the nearly desolate beach. After we had walked a while, a pretty thick mist had come in, very eerily at first and later giving a surreal effect, as it seemed that we could not see anything except what was directly in front of us for some time; everything else appeared blurry or in between the mist clouds. Anyway, this is where I scratched out the beginnings of this poem. It doesn't capture the setting as I wanted, but when can you really capture everything (if anything at all)...
Through Tear-filled Eyes
The clouds had scared me, but the breeze was fresh.
An avalanche mist, blanketed the land
And kissed the tie-dyed-plum veins,
A polite blemish on the sand,
Until we couldn't see the way we came.
An unfinished painting
Except for our yearning curve of beach
Where I had hoped to see the seals haul out,
Sea-dogs is what you meant,
You were more interested in becoming silhouttes,
But we both sought the unreal.
Brown and green bottles stuffed with murk and sand,
The tarnished nameless cans,
Erosion at the speed of night evokes a thrill.
The ocean makes everything ancient
Through the constant life and death of the wave
That I watch and you need only listen
With your eyes closed,
You hear the whole blurry story
Of their birth out of the sand-beige clouds,
The smuddged blue-opal horizon,
and their death a bold stroke of definition.
The heavy muted flashes of a seagull on its drowning obelisk,
Beyond are the lost ghosts of the Bermuda Triangle,
You're just a shadow now.
Another gust and an empty rock,
It flies off the easel and into the edge of the earth.
MR
