Delicate Beauty

The temperature was unusually warm for December 2.  After leaving the car in the Doane Rock picnic area, I took the forest path toward the ocean which leads through a grove of pitch pine and red cedar for a short way before intersecting with the Park Service bike path.  Instead of following the path up to the old Coast Guard station, I skirted around to the right along the marsh edge.  There is not a formal trail.  Successive tides erase muddy footprints but the way is clear because of a tramped corridor through the invasive phragmites.  After a couple hundred yards I climbed over the dunes and down to the beach.  I was alone on a remote ocean beach on a day so perfect that it hurt.
 

Walking south toward the inlet, I was accompanied not by humans but by hundreds, no thousands of sea birds.  Gulls, scoters, and cormorants were too numerous to attempt any reasonable count.  Majestic gannets soared in  huge vaulting arcs, plunging to the sea in spectacular explosive dives.  
   
All of us have all been in places where the natural beauty is overwhelming. On this day, I felt a gentle  ache of melancholy, questioning how many more opportunities there would be to have such an experience.  I recalled old friends that are now far away in space and time.  There is so much that should have been said to those we have known and loved.    

At the far end of the spit the tidal water was boiling through the inlet.  An owl had arrived from the far north to share this view of the marsh.  She sat patiently while I fumbled with the camera.  I finally got a couple of decent shots.  We stared at one another for long moments, me curious, she apprehensive.  

I returned on the marsh side of the barrier dunes, taking in the expansive views toward the Coast Guard station.  The marsh side walk is peaceful and quiet in contrast to the harsh pounding surf, the subtle colors comforting in the low slant of December light.  

There is a house at the head of the marsh that I covet.  I imagine a comfortable chair with an open view across the grasses swaying in the winter wind.  In that warm refuge I would consider contacting old friends far away in space to say things that should have been said.  I could only contemplate connection with those who are lost in time.