I remember rising in the early hours

to go with my father or a friend.

At dawn we’d walk the shallows to find

their little breathing holes in the mud.

The smell of the bays and mud returns to me at times,

and a sense of the flowing current.

 

Egrets and gulls had their space, part of the design

to which we belong.

Among the reeds I’d sometimes find a shark tooth.

Back on shore I used to see the shell middens

left under the bright sun by those long gone

and wondered about them.

 

Because I lived here not just anywhere

I used to find a lot of clams and oysters,

and slept under the stars until the sun spilled forth.

Walked with the afternoon rain through temples of forest,

and trembled when thunder exploded out of itself

into bright noise.

 

I remember the clam bakes on the beach at night

with friends from college.

Everyone was humming, happy.

How we cling to the roads we know

and reach the crossroads, searching

for what was wonderful, exciting, familiar.

 

Stephen Cipot

Garden City Park