Across the Bay

A queer thing about those waters: there are no Birds there, or hardly any. I did not miss them, I do not remember Missing them, or thinking it uncanny. The beach so-called was a blinding splinter of limestone, A quarry outraged by hulls. We took pleasure in that: the emptiness, the hardness Of the light, the silence, and the water’s stillness. But this was the setting for one of our murderous scenes. This hurt, and goes on hurting: The venomous soft jelly, the undersides. We could stand the world if it were hard all over.