The Coast Road

This road,
with its rising
verge of green,

and the dark
earth below,
strung with
seams of quartz
and granite,

and the patient
stand of maples
that abide atop the
ridge despite the
wind coming off the
ocean in winter,

and the silence of
this ancient steam
train, stopped and
entombed with a
twisting of grass,

with the smell of
creosoted wood
slowly turning to
powder on a damp
day in early spring,

with the coy sound
of a shy robin, the
quick twitch of its
head, the sparkle
of its dark eye, its
wingbeat as it lights
in the rough grass of
the field and pecks
down an insect,

and the clouds will
clot up and join
ranks as the day
goes on, blunting
the sunlight to a
silvery gray,

with occasional
rain spitting down
to hang in my hair
and darken my
shoulders,

but I am glad of it
and glad there are
no cars trundling
noisly by on this
dark and stony road,
but only the scenery,
and the audible hush
of distant trees, and
the phantom, sublimated
rush and retreat of the
ocean.