A Walk on Ferry Beach, Maine

by Philip F. Clark

What a December! with its hot surprise:
The stretch of beach alive with a fat sun, like an eye,
as walkers strolled, dogs running to the water’s edge
feeling the strange change of time.

The dune grasses green as we stretched there,
and the water shone like white glass bones.
Trees spotted with deep red berries gleamed
as we, astonished, strode by their electric kingdoms.

Brine-crackled birds rushed over the moorings;
the air was filled with the hope of the
hesitant, not sure of its sudden new heat.
We sat, watched and simply lifted our faces.

What else could one do but give thanks? You laughed,
and I turned to you, at some joke we shared,
and saw winter ease its hand, filling you with a grace
of something close to the sun you were dressed in.