There is a beach
a mile wide,
that borders on the Pacific,
a huge emptiness,
like a gray sky of measureless gloom.
Perhaps it was the time I found it,
and the cold, damp breath of the evening,
and the lines of dark epiphanies
from receding tides.
As if the ocean hesitated and would move,
pause, and withdraw,
and I was amazed at the solitude.
A fire to the north,
a pinprick of light,
a stray burning butterfly on the sand,
but the rest,
only sea and shore.
And the great prairie of distance
and fuzzy fog.
So it was I saw the greatest beach
hugging the greatest ocean,
and felt an immense and vacant hollow,
and knew peace
as I’ve never known it,
and life as it would be,
if it never ended.