T.

For those of you to whom I've promised postcards
and are faithfully checking the mailbox daily,
despair not. I'm here for another month.
Each one takes about an hour, and it's been
slow going of late, what with a steady supply
of houseguests.

Robin and I set out along the curving cove
last night at about 9pm, in a faint drizzle.
The tide was far, far out, and we walked
on the floor of the ocean: carrageen moss
and periwinkles and hundreds of crabs
no bigger my thumbnail. Every footstep
was a squelch.





On the nearest island, kayaks lined the beach
like bright pennants in front of the lone cottage:
red, yellow, green.

No otters tonight, but once I watched one
shimmy up from the water, sleek and quick,
only to disappear as quickly into some tunneled hole.

Behind us, sweet honeysuckles stretched languorously
over the bank and seemed to go on forever
I gathered a fistful -- delicate and pale blossoms,
enough to fill the cream pitcher, enough
to scent our gabled house --