Placing myself on a long quiet strip of land and sand
somewhere, Cape Cod, Maine, Newfoundland
some beach, some rocky shore removed, remote.
I remember two late summer days spent alone
on the farthest tip of Cape Cod, the quiet,
the breakwater of huge stones arcing out
into the sea leading to a spit of land that
when the tide came in would be covered over
the frisson of danger as I stepped across
the elegance of the flat square stones underfoot
the luxury of being alone in that place
taking my own time, needing neither
to come nor go nor eat nor drink by
another’s lights, clock, whim or desire
needing nothing at all but that exact place in
that perfect time with only the sea and the shore
for company a beginning I did not recognize then
for what it was–the graceful commencement of my present.