The sea pushes the rusted cable ferry out to the dried up bay,
waits an hour, sun on the gunmetal flanks; hauls the load in again.
Out of the sea, back to the sea. It’s had a long time
to resent the things it’s been asked to do with its life,
pushing and pulling, changing the sun for the moon,
long hours on its silent plains burying what no one’s looking for.
It’s never felt younger or more vigorous.
It’s wild, a maniac, ruled by its desires. It wants
to eat the rails off the ferry. Far off on the ice of Saint Lawrence
its waves disgorge a Greenland shark, a caribou in the belly
antlers and all—through great contortions the sea describes
what it’s craving. The tide comes in. It eats the rails off the ferry.
For days it’s spitting up rust and red flecks of paint.

Down in the treacherous shale pumping oil by gallons,
in the saltwater gyres spinning winches on old ships with sails;
bludgeoning the earth until geography happens. The sea’s labor
wears out the unfinished shore—not with temperance,
no artful work with the hands, like the seagull who gets
the meat from a horseshoe crab. A storm kills the cattle and dogs
but leaves the fan trees standing and joists in the pier.
The steady slope of the ocean shelf terminates
in a sudden drop—that’s a metaphor the Buddhists employed,
though they had not walked out to the great canyons and seen the sea
grinding quartz at the core to make its pearl.
Or the lime cliffs it stole material from, things more ancient than anyone.
But it’s good to watch a quantity diminish:
it’s like how time moves. Not at all, then all at once.