REFLECTIONS

by

Ed Matlack (edited by Bobbie Hess)

Summer season visitors

suppose the ocean shore is pleasant

ONLY

during one season of the year.

Those of us who reside at the shore

are happy, too, with the graces of winter scenery.

We are touched as much by the winter

as by the genial influences of summer.

The attentive eye catches each moment

of the year in its own beauty.

The most intricate camera in creation—

the human eye—

takes myriad numbers of pictures of Nature,

storing them for future fulfillment in memory.

Pictures of strolling along

on a barren seashore at twilight,

sparsely covered in a blanket of snow,

capture the quietude of winter peace.

Few adults can really see Nature . . .

One whose inward and outward senses

are still adjusted to each other,

is a true lover of Nature;

retaining the spirit of infancy,

even into adulthood.

Walking on the winter shore,

a man casts off his years—

like a snake its skin.

On the ocean shore is perpetual youth.

One is always a child,

no matter what his phase of life.

A certain feeling of decorum and sanctity reigns

while on these great expanses of sand and snow.

I would find it hard to tire of this sanctity,

even in a thousand lifetimes.

I return to reason and faith when on the beach.

I feel nothing can befall me in life—

no disgrace or problem

that Nature cannot repair.

Nature’s presence that envelopes me

brings on a kind of wild delight,

running completely through me,

in spite of any real or imagined sorrows.

Standing on bare ground—

my head bathed by the blithe air and falling snow—

uplifts my spirit into infinite space.

All my problems, my egotisms,

my sorrows, and my worries vanish.

My physical being is replenished.

Currents and eddies of some “higher being”

circulate through me.

I am a part or a parcel

of that being.  I am a love

of the uncontained and immortal

beauty of Nature.

Something more dear and connate

than forested paths,

than stretches of desert sands,

than the streets of the city,

is what I find at the shore.

This tranquil landscape

running parallel to

the distant line of the horizon,

beholds something as beautiful

as my own being.

Every season

yields its tribute of delight

for those who can “get in touch”

with that side of one’s self.

Each seasonal change

corresponds and authorizes,

a different state of mind—

from the warmest noon

to the most frigid and grimmest midnight.