1

between sunset and sunrise
the ocean returns to desolate obsidian

of her dark depths
in the character

at best, stars above
strand of shoreline, depending

maybe the moon
with her sea-legs

or repeated slapping

2

breakers arrive as a single point of reflected white
opening out evenly in a line on either side

a lip, sometimes to one side only
rarely claiming, “I love you”

sheets of gleaming water shift on the sand
or everything way out, obscured
in fog

scolding
pipers scurry about
on their stilt-legs

at highest tide, pebbles sound of boiling

with all the sunburned drunks long asleep
or the party, behind glass or on the deck
a cigarette meanders somewhere to my left
though I catch no shards of conversation

3

if only the beach were not broken
by rocky fingers and cliffs

unseen ledges and outcroppings

or overwhelmed in abrupt tempests

the night voyageur might sail dependably
by the compass

but vessels and their crews
mostly go down along coastline
blindly

mistranslating, the whole sense stymied
by a single word, a puzzle, upturned wind

4

count the seconds, then, in the flashing
points
matched to the chart

one red-lighted buoy
white caps below

Whaleback just clearing the hilltop

a large, well-lighted ship near the Shoals
waiting for high tide to enter Portsmouth

or on a very clear night, way off
Thacher Island, Cape Ann, Gloucester

how is it the Boon flare jumps about
three spots, playing the length of shrouded rock island?

of the available beacons
the closest, curiously, appears only a muffle

in the call of the underside
“come to me”

mournful bell or horn
and strobe light

restless, relentless
rhythm, however unpredictable
retreats, advances
restores, destroys
cleanses

5

I cannot imagine rowing ten miles to an island
at midnight

after an evening in town

but they did
for a drink or conversation
so they said

Poem copyright 2016 by Jnana Hodson
To see the full set of seacoast poems, click here.

1

slowly approaching a line
that grows from the edge of the sea
and then spreads at the harbor mouth

slowly, details emerge
and at last, some recognition
in what’s become familiar

home, or at least neighborhood
extending

attuned here, more than elsewhere

the awareness, something all your own
has happened with this place
but not knowing precisely when

in the tide
returning

2

introductions, by degrees
lapping and receding

even in six hours

Plum Island with Eric, Bill
and the baby, “Why don’t we leave our towels
down there?” rather than the crest of the dune

“you’ll see”
once the surf bubbled inches
from our possessions

or high tide covering the jetty
that shaded the sailboat venturing out

or entering a ferry on one deck
and exiting
on the return, from another

or weather

on a carefully selected
Sunday picnic, and air
optimal for swimming at the sandbar
only to have the Coast Guard
pull up in an inflatable raft with a bullhorn
“Out of the water! A storm’s coming!”
while the sky’s still cloudless but
before we reach shelter two hundred
feet away, the sun’s gone and a deluge opens

with or without hail

or the mid-afternoon ferry
through twenty-foot swells
and returning at sunset
on calm water

not that we’re friends
or have much of what you’d call
a relationship

3

miles inland, closer to the house
detecting high tide in marshes and rivers
or its absence

salt hay in cow milk

Poem copyright 2016 by Jnana Hodson
To see the full set of seacoast poems, click here.