I am drawn to themin books, in memoryone much visited,small, habitable, easily traversed,remembered, rediscovered,the mingled smellsof sea and soil. They may rise upfrom the seabed of sleep,from restless origins,defiant cliffs transmuteto gentling foothills,village yards. Fixed in timeor changing hourly,weather always the onemost wished-for,the season chosen for its gifts,its special gifts: the silenced wood,the yielding soil, […]

A KEY FOUND FAR FROM ANY DOOR Look here, what I’ve found, half buried in the sand. What door is missing it? What room is waiting? Let’s choose the house where it belongs, find inside our favorite room. Let’s say it sits close by a rocky ledge just above this cove. A room one story […]

Woven from wild grasses, a cluster of wild flowers tucked in its band, a single gull feather worn aft: on a day shifting between summer’s end and fall’s beginning, we stand at the dock waving goodbye to parting friends when a sudden gust lifts the hat from your head, sends it, brim flapping, winging its […]

SUNDAY MORNING, OFF THE COAST OF MAINE  The basement Laundromat is deserted I fill both machines, then head upstairs to the Black Duck for a scone and chai. I sit at the cribbage table, watch the day wander in.   There is gypsy jazz playing, Django Reinhardt style, its foot-tapping rhythm contagious. Arline and Mo […]

NACE EL FUEGO ~After reading “It Is Born,” by Pablo Neruda I have consulted his poems about the sea to dampen the dust of my dry yearning, but even here a fire is born. I am left thirsty for blue, for air whetted with salt. Where is the hidden cove with its sea glass treasures, […]

WINTER ON ISLAND Wicked cold day. An afternoon walk with the dogs down to the dock where buffleheads, like bath toys, teeter on waves. Distant islands are in mirage. If only I could sense summer– whiff of salt, touch of hand to warm rock or to stand in the middle of a cloudless aquamarine summer […]