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Slanting Lines
South wind today. So the breakers
come at an angle, sweep
along the beach. Each
finds its own reach up the foreshore,
the banked sand and shingle, perhaps
(when the tide is high enough)
as far the cliff. The wind
whips the spume
into irregular clots, picks them up,
and strews them downwind.
The cliff
is of course ephemeral, built
not only on, but of,
sand. All along the foreshore,
the remains of trees
that once grew on the hill above,
and bits of buildings, human artifacts.
Geological time
is foreshortened. This is now, here,
real human time.