Two Poems

Beaches

I
It's the sheer length and breadth of it, the amount
of sand it must take to amount to it, that impress
me. How infinitely the sand varies
from powderiness to moist clumps. How it ranges
from land out to sea, tawnily weirder than either.

II
The sea pores over itself. The beach performs
its disappearing act, slowly getting watery.
What science of beaches could account for how
the water finds itself here running amok,
here having to hold back? I know very little, really.

III
Like something getting clearer, the beach resumes
being a beach. The sea gorges on itself.
The soppy beach keeps its marks and corrugations,
saving bits and smatterings of darker water.
...