At the Shore

Drove to the beach yesterday hoping to catch sight of shorebirds on their annual migration north. But it was the lowest tide I’ve seen in years, and if there were any shore birds we certainly didn’t get close enough to see any, much less to take pictures.

Instead, we were treated to an even stranger phenomena. A bright, sunny day! At Ocean Shores!

I lived in Aberdeen for nearly a year and fled the constant rain that began to depress me despite the fact that I’ve always loved the Pacific Northwest. Still, there’s nothing better than a sunny day at the beach. It seems strangely appropriate that the biggest draw here now is an Indian Casino.

Despite the sunshine, we didn’t see many people in our five-mile walk, and even those we saw were distant, intent on enjoying their short time on this timeless beach.

I haven’t visited here in nearly a year, and large parts of the beach that used to be covered in grass were now covered by sand. The old road leading out to the point was so covered with sand that the bulldozer driver seemed to be having a hard time rediscovering it.

Strangely comforting
these infinite grains of sand —
once giant boulders.

6 thoughts on “At the Shore”

  1. I like both of your beach photos and your haiku. It has been a long time since I’ve seen the ocean. Glad to see that the sun was shining there.

  2. I like these austere images. Not offering as much to the eye (lens) as the flowers and birds, they remind me of what McLuhan says about the differnce between “hot” and cold” media; cold does all the work for us (if I recall) and “hot” invites us in.
    I think these images do that. We want to supply more to them. A flower fills the frame. A lean
    log on a hill of sand begs us to see symbols.
    I don’t care much for those empty white horseshoes we see in postcards. I like our gritty stretches strewn with the carcasses of logs.

  3. I especially like the top image Loren – part Gulliver’d Travels and part Yves Tanguy, and also slightly reminiscent of the opening scene of 2001 a Space Odyssey.

  4. Loren, I found the Roethke papers last night. I’ll post one on my Blog with the ‘versions’ notations I was talking about, and if it seems like something you still want I get you a handful more. Mostly choices in diction. Some lines cut wholesale. Just let me know. I think you will be underwhelmed, though now that I read through it all.

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