EARLY MORNING SHORE

by Ed Matlack Ó 2003


Walking on the cold winter beach
At this hour before sunrise
Is a study in total silence.
The sea is smooth as glass;
Not even the slightest hint of a ripple to break the surface.
I am never completely alone on the beach,
Even this early in the morning.
Never more alone than the north star,
Or the south wind, or an April shower,
Or a January thaw.
The early morning stars
In the heavens are with me
As well as the rising sun.
Nature’s splendor and magnificence
Is my everlasting companion.

As the dark of the night retreats into the west,
Like a jackal cowering away from a ferocious lion,
The far reaching rays of the sun
Tint the early sky,
Flashing reddish hues across the ocean.
At first, only a flicker of light
Is seen on the horizon—
Looking more like a candle than the sun.
Morning blooms
As the sun creeps over the horizon;
Emitting its warming rays to burn off the mist
And reflecting off the calm ocean surface
Like twinkling diamonds.

The gulls awaken,
Shrieking and squawking to their over-sleeping friends,
"It’s time to get up, it’s morning!"
They start to forage for their morning meal.
Will it be clams that washed ashore through the night?
Or maybe, schools of fish
That frolic on the surface of the ocean
Just beyond the beach.
The sandpipers, too, are awake
Playing tag with the in-coming waves
That fizzle out on the beach.
Food is the search now;
But the search is limited to picking at the sand,
Pulling out the day-sleeper crustaceans
Below the surface—ah, a tasty meal!

Innocence and beneficence of Nature is indescribable.
Of sun, of wind, of rain, of summers, and of winters,
Such sympathy Nature has
For the world of man.
As advanced as the man-made world is,
It cannot hold a candle to this natural world.
Nature has a purpose—
No matter how trivial—
And always a place for the creatures.

The sun rises higher
Now that the day is getting later.
The rest of the world awakens,
And the inhabitants of the natural world
Scurry back to their places of refuge.
Only the sun continues its trek
Across the sky.
Humans take over this private world of mine,
And I, too—like the gulls,
The sandpipers, the shore and sea animals—
Must retreat to the sanctity of my own refuge.

With all his advances,
Can Man boast the same sympathy
for Nature
As Nature affords Man?


edited by Bobbie Hess