Isles of Shoals Sinking In

The other August day and I won’t say what August day, I stopped at one of the parking lots on 1A along the NH seacoast. It’s one of my favorite spots. Sometimes there’s mad surf on big rocks. And usually there’s a fierce view of the Isles of Shoals. That day there was neither. The waves were almost non-existent while the tide was going out. And there was a haze over the ocean that hid the Isles. But in the corner of my eye I thought I caught a glimpse of something. I suppose it was just the heat of summer or a trick of memory. Or something like Atlantis ascending.

Sonnet August Nine

From the Rye shore
Star Island was a dream
I raised beneath
burnt haze of afternoon—
a la Shangri-La—or
some ancient regime
in Africa—
say spellbound Cameroon.
It was everything but
one of the Isles of Shoals,
having disappeared
—through vaporous pinholes
in that immateriality—
at sea.

~Son Rivers 2005