Plum Island High Tide Redux

Last week, on Plum Island, I walked the boardwalk from Parking Lot 5 to the beach. I could hear the surf from the access road. When I reached the end of the boardwalk, I realized there was, for all intents and purposes, no beach. I had never seen the tide so high. It wasn’t an especially ferocious ocean. The waves weren’t that large, but the surf had reached the dunes. I stood there watching the waves, resigned to the fact that I would not be walking the beach that morning. But I noticed someone approaching from the north. Well, if they could do it, so could I. I noticed a small strand along the south still safe, so I walked towards a large driftwood tree washed ashore between an open area between large dunes.

Here’s stanza 4, 5, & 6 of the current project. (1-3 were posted yesterday)

But Barbara does. And so today she slogs
along that filament of beach, her camera
at hand, apprehending an indistinct
ocean, a muted blue advance nearby

arising from unknown cerulean
horizons. The tide is new moon full and soon
the shore is nothing more than walls of dunes.
The sand is unsettled and steep, and walking is

intractable for one beyond her prime.
Her breathing plumbs untold depths; she steps unsure.
The only place to walk is now the wash
of surf; the tide’s grown astronomical.