Summer Sands

Do you never long to revisit the old familiar places?

Never! It is better to hold a pleasant dream than have it shattered by reality; I have changed but not like the beach. The wide tide-table still vanishes into pale ochre but what comes to that board now?

There is no romance in man made flotsam so let us return to the days when feathered farers found sandy reaches alluring in their natural settings.

Memory is still faithful- it is so easy to wander again along that wide road margined by timeless surf and undulating dunes and rainbow tints in Adventure’s bubble gleam as colorfully ’longshore as in unexplored jungles ;

I left the bay meadows where Rails were clacking down the sun behind far Long Island hills and crossed to the beach. Small flocks of Sandpipers scurried aloft at my approach, alightling a little way ahead,and followed with twinkling legs the edge of their restless supper table. Swiftly they run, miniature soldiers at the charge, then suddenly stop while tiny bills seize morsels of food before the coming wave buries it.

Airminded-strong winged-Sandpipers roam the open spaces. A trip from Labrador to Long Island is all in the day’s fancy. They are so small–sea, beach and sky so vast–yet the touch of wistful life they give outweighs these immensities.

They leave the beach at dusk for small ponds behind the dunes. With heads on back pillows and one leg housed they sleep–starry or stormy sky above–wind thru the cedars for lullaby.

Changes wrought by night are more subtle on the beach than in the wood. Within a narrow radius dim grayness assured solid sand ahead but beyond that small cicle the familiar world was gone. Suddenly above the surf’s steady beat a faint whistle vibrated ‘eerie as an elf in horn’. A flurry of snow flakes winded by– the downy breasts of Sanderlings–canted to avoid me. Returning to an even keel they were instantly encompassed by the night, their low calls wafted back on the southwest wind, Dark parts of plumage were invisible–only that evanescent glimpse of fleeting breasts–recalling a September night. Do you remember Antoinette or have you too flown into the dark?

Above high water near a quiet pool left in a sand hollow by the ebbtide I scooped out a bed, stuck driftwood on the sides, roofed it over rufly and settled down for the night. With ears so low the sibilant whisper of wind-moved sand dominated surf rhythm and sleep came on the low, sweet call of a Piping Plover talking to himself somewhere off there under the dim stars.

Nowhere does the earth sense leave us so completely as on the beach at night. Rest atop a dune–look up–dimensions are no more. You are part of the mystery overhead–lost in it– until a waving grass tip brings back reality.

I awoke before sunrise and looked across a pale cobalt sea barred by deep gray where curling crests imprisoned shadows beneath. Swallows had left bayberry roosts and were breakfasting–some anticipating the dawn far aloft–taking points of orange on their white feathers from the sun still invisible to my earth bound vision.

Then the seas’ sincerity was broken by jets of spray beyond the breakers. Bluefish were darling with lethal violence among unfortunate menhaden. Nearby eight Willets were preening with flickering wings and bills. Nature loves contrast: peace and domesticity ashore– rapine and savage elimination a few fathoms away! The realist must mask the tragedy permeating life or content will evade him. All the glories of nature in whatever form revealed, must be the counterpoise of hostility. Beauty pursued so eagerly that it becomes more than an illusion, becomes so real that it blots out the dark side of the picture.

Where the horseshoe curve of the Point held bay waters, a battalion of fiddler crabs was drawn up in two ranks. While puzzling over the reason for this formation, several female crabs emerged from holes in the dark sand and paraded solemnly down the open space between the lines. Gallons waved their fighting claws wildly but the ladies were not rushed– the amorous invitation swerve disdainfully ignored. The ranks retained formation until the squad slipped into burrows when a wild scramble ensued but the show was over–the sirens had disappeared. Perhaps it was a Queen and her Court reviewing the troops. The comical exhibition obliterated thots of the bluefish holocaust around the Point; thots which had not sunk deep–few mortals are much disturbed over fish!

Soon after meridian a darkened sea rim presaged the southwest wind’s coming. True to the compass point as the Trades, it advanced, riffling the ocean into great patches of purple and bringing that invigorating, alluring perfume absorbed from leagues of salt seas. On the beach its breath is steady but here heat waves from dunes fluctuate it into puffs of varying intensity.

Presently I came to the old familiar Cedars, now more brown than green for the summer has reached August with little rain. Altho these trees exist because of moisture from the sea they need fresh water to keep them green. Here and there windblown sand has subdued a tree into a mere wisp of life–only a few leaves on the highest branches.

The tenacity of their grip on the silver cord in that unending struggle with “white death” is astonishing. I have seen some victims almost buried, then a storm would release the sand stranglehold and in a year the nearly obliterated gladiators would have completely recovered.

To a windswept Point I’m going
Where the sturdy Cedars dip.
In a line of smoky greeness
To the ocean’s grayblue lip”
Maybe Willets will meet me there!