CANTO 70 She came nearly every day

i

She came nearly every day to watch the sea.

If you cared to ask she would smile and say,

"How strange that you would talk to someone so

ordinary. I come for the children and lovers,

beach-walkers, joggers, bathers who unfold

gaudy umbrellas, spread their bright blankets,

anoint themselves to be shielded from the sun."

ii

If you walked with her past knots of switch grass

and wild rye, and if you climbed the slope

below the highway to a certain rock, she’d say,

"I come for the sandpipers and curlews dodging

waves that glisten and then fade into the shore.

Occasionally I stoop for an interesting shell.

Then I climb to hear the gulls, the children."

iii

"I’ll tell you one more thing before you go.

The air finishes its mild spell

and the people leave. At dusk the light is balm

that pours into me. The blue of my robe is the slate

blue of the coast. My hair flows into the sea

where clouds of indigo rise to the sky."