On a Point (previously published)

The hemlock I sit beneath shadows the
sea, whose currents cool winds that whip salty
spray up to the point, a stage where flowers
dance with deer.  Fawns, asleep on pine spills, wake
when a rabbit squeals, then nibble saplings
rooted in dirt lodged in rock as a fox
flops a meal down in front of her pups.  While
bees pick up pollen and zip between buds,
troupes of bugs crumble fallen oaks, which, in
summers blessed with youth and saved from age, brushed
the sky of white and blue with green.  Below
the woods, grey waves hammer and carve, splatter
their froth on, black-speckled stone; the grains get
bleached in the surf and whooshed back onto the
shore—the colors rush away with the tide.