Shore Line

We speak of mankind. Why not wavekind? Barrel-chested military water rushes in a mass to break the shore earth into stonekind. Pphlooph pphlooph the waves grope indistinctly for the shore. As delicate as a butterfly along a cheek a boat with white and orange sail appears. A small boy in a life-belt sits in front and looks ahead with all his might. His father steers, attached like a shaft to his son’s safety and the sail’s management. A sunfish thrown back by a fisherman lies drowned and pitching. The eyes are white in death. This is the raw data. A mystery translates it into feeling and perception; then imagination; finally the hard inevitable quartz figure of will and language. Thus a squirrel tail flying from a handlebar unmistakably establishes its passing rider as a male unbowed in a chipper plume.