Simply Charming

Just a small, charming shack visible from Stage Fort Park.

Quite a harbor vista!

Almost appears to be a castle.

Simply Charming

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Simply Solitary

A Solitary Sailor
by J Michele Bodkin

a solitary sailor walks down a sandbank
the dry sand crumbles ‘neath his feet
these sands, water they no longer drink
paint cracking and peeling off of boats and a sink
the sun upon the hot sand beats
a solitary tree lies, where it fell, at the bottom of the bank

an old beach house decays ‘neath old dead oak trees
dry sea oats rustle in strong gusts of wind
a rotten shutter creaks in the cool breeze
old dry sea weed crackles and blows in the breeze
the sun falls towards the horizon
the wind bemoans its lost friend, the sea

the seaman on the tree trunk sits
a quiet fog upon the sand creeps
the burning sun on the horizon sets
the solitary sailor thinks of lost love, and regrets
the fog up to the log creeps
the fog inside itself, the seaman, lets

sun, to day’s eyes is visible no longer
the fog transforms into a wave
wave washes from the shore
with it disappears the solitary sailor
the man, no longer sea’s slave
stars appear and the sand turns silver

Simply Solitary

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Simply Waiting

Many are waiting for spring.
Others are waiting for Opening Day.
This boat was waiting for something, although I know not what.

He floated back and forth for over 30 minutes.
Probably just waiting for me to leave!

Simply Waiting

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Simply Awaiting

On this quiet Saturday afternoon in February, many of the boats can be found silently tied to the piers, awaiting their next journey.

Simply Awaiting

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Simply A Tree -- Why?

If you were a tree, what kind of tree would you be?
Why?

If a tree was a letter, what letter would it be?
Y?

Simply A Tree -- Why?

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Simply Pretty City

Distant views of Gloucester's "cityscape" from Stage Fort Park.
It was a cold, overcast day in February.

A slightly closer view.

Simply Pretty City

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Simply Grand Band Standing

The Antonio Gentile Bandstand sits quietly at Stage Fort Park this time of the year.

A small detail that is often overlooked.

Simply Grand Band Standing

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Simply Little Ice

Little River in February should probably be renamed Little Ice.

No boating here for a few more weeks.

Little River iced over.

Simply Little Ice

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Simply Free

It wasn't as warm as was forecast, although compared to the earlier days in January, it was much nicer. Lots of free time for a walk along Good Harbor Beach.

Almost "Escher-esque"!
A picture of a photographer next to granite taking a picture of a woman next to granite!

Houses all boarded up for the winter.

Two friends meet on the beach after many years apart!

Heading home.

Simply Free

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Simply Frozen Over

All the boats are packed away for the winter which is a good thing!
I don't think that many would make it down the Essex river this day.

Simply Frozen Over

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Simply Taken Apart

Two more images from Conomo Point in Essex.
You'll have to watch your footing on this dock.
The first step is a doozy!

Check out this house across the water.
See what happens when two brothers cannot agree?

Simply Taken Apart

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Simply Left

Conomo Point in Essex in early November.
Even the leaves have left from the trees.

Autumn River Song
Written by Li Po
The moon shimmers in green water.
White herons fly through the moonlight.

The young man hears a girl gathering water-chestnuts:
into the night, singing, they paddle home together.

Sitting Outside at the End of Autumn
Written by Charles Wright

Three years ago, in the afternoons,
I used to sit back here and try
To answer the simple arithmetic of my life,
But never could figure it—
This object and that object
Never contained the landscape
nor all of its implications,
This tree and that shrub
Never completely satisfied the sum or quotient
I took from or carried to,
nor do they do so now,
Though I'm back here again, looking to calculate,
Looking to see what adds up.

Everything comes from something,
only something comes from nothing,
Lao Tzu says, more or less.
Eminently sensible, I say,
Rubbing this tiny snail shell between my thumb and two fingers.
Delicate as an earring,
it carries its emptiness like a child
It would be rid of.
I rub it clockwise and counterclockwise, hoping for anything
Resplendent in its vocabulary or disguise—
But one and one make nothing, he adds,
endless and everywhere,
The shadow that everything casts.

The Death Of Autumn
Written by Edna St. Vincent Millay
When reeds are dead and a straw to thatch the marshes,
And feathered pampas-grass rides into the wind
Like aged warriors westward, tragic, thinned
Of half their tribe, and over the flattened rushes,
Stripped of its secret, open, stark and bleak,
Blackens afar the half-forgotten creek,—
Then leans on me the weight of the year, and crushes
My heart. I know that Beauty must ail and die,
And will be born again,—but ah, to see
Beauty stiffened, staring up at the sky!
Oh, Autumn! Autumn!—What is the Spring to me?

Simply Left

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Simply Aground

It is November at Conomo Point in Essex.
The summer has past. Families and visitors have left.
Many of the houses have been closed up until next year.
At low tide, even the sea appears to have journeyed away for the season!

Low-Tide
Written by Edna St. Vincent Millay

These wet rocks where the tide has been,
Barnacled white and weeded brown
And slimed beneath to a beautiful green,
These wet rocks where the tide went down
Will show again when the tide is high
Faint and perilous, far from shore,
No place to dream, but a place to die,—
The bottom of the sea once more.
There was a child that wandered through
A giant's empty house all day,—
House full of wonderful things and new,
But no fit place for a child to play.

Low Tide
Written by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

The sea came wooing in mad male fashion;
The strand like a maiden was shy as fair.
He fell at her feet with a cry of passion,
And flung out his arms to clasp her there.

He swore to be true; the bright stars glistened,
And the wind went dallying off with the ships,
While the strand like a maiden leaned and listened
And the sea's wild kisses fell on her lips.

But desolate now in the moonlight's glory
Is lying the pale, deserted strand,
While the sea is telling the same old story
To another shore, in another land.

The Tide Rises, the Tide Falls
Written by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The tide rises, the tide falls,
The twilight darkens, the curlew calls;
Along the sea-sands damp and brown
The traveller hastens toward the town,
And the tide rises, the tide falls.

Darkness settles on roofs and walls,
But the sea, the sea in the darkness calls;
The little waves, with their soft, white hands,
Efface the footprints in the sands,
And the tide rises, the tide falls.

The morning breaks; the steeds in their stalls
Stamp and neigh, as the hostler calls;
The day returns, but nevermore
Returns the traveller to the shore,
And the tide rises, the tide falls.

Simply Aground

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