from first snowfall, mountain range. A world

of horizontal lines. Father leads the way. Heaps

of kelp. One fishing boat trolls the breakers.

Wind is reporting familiar news of brine, 

distant fog. Gangs of sandpipers wade

in shallow sheen. Low tide. We pass two 

small brothers bent and digging. Tide pools

reveal thick skins of mussels and sea urchins.

Memories of twenty-three summers. Small ponds,

stilled. Someone has shaped a face in the sand. 

Who was I, so long ago?