Sunday, December 21, 2008

First There Is An Island Then There Is

No Island

As the tide decreases in Bar Harbor
twice a day, Bar Island, situated
opposite the town, across the harbor,
soon becomes no island, and the water
in-between the island and the village
soon becomes a narrow kind of isthmus
there instead, connecting town and headland.
Cars begin to cross the drying sandbar.
People walk their dogs along new shorelines.
Seagulls search for shellfish in the shallows.
Some nights, like tonight, the sun will lower
as the tide grows back into its fullness,
and the land transforms back into island
as the day returns into the darkness.

~Son Rivers 2002

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