Snow at midnight;
before dawn,
blurred, bright half-moon.

No sound but wind as the light grows.
No marsh hawk, no gull or tern in sight.
No boats out there, nothing
between here, Coatue, and Pomoco Head. 

I call the bent, sugared grasses on the bluff
“the bent, sugared grasses on the bluff.”

Twenty five years ago,
I might have referred to cocaine 
in describing them.

If I’d been here in colonial days,
I might have spoken of a gentleman’s wig.

What we see doesn’t change
as much as how we describe it does.

What we see doesn’t change 
as much as how we see…

so: alone before dawn watching snow
and sea..

solitude or loneliness?
In the presence of something,
or its absence?