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Commencement

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.