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William Matthews - A Walk
Work rating: Low

February on the narrow beach, 3o 
A.M. I set out south. Cape Cod Light 
on its crumbling cliff above me turns 
its wand of light so steadily 
it might be tolling a half-life, 
it might be the second-hand 
of a schoolroom clock, 
a kind of blind radar. 

These bluffs deposited by glaaciers 
are giving themselves away 
to the beaches down the line, three 
feet of coastline a year. I follow 
them south at my own slow pace. 
Ahead my grandfather died 
in a boat and my father 
found him and here I come. 

If I cleave to the base of the I berm 
the offshore wind swirls grit 
just over my head and the backwash 
rakes it away. If I keep going 
south toward my grandfatherís house 
in Chatham, and beyond, 
the longshore current grinds the sand 
finer the farther I go. It spreads 

it wider and the beaches sift 
inland as far as they can go 
before beachgrass laces them down 
for now. It gets to be spring, 
I keep walking, it gets to be 
summer. Families loll. 
Now the waves are small; they keep 
their swash marks close to home. 

A little inland from the spurge 
and sea-rockets my tan sons kick 
a soccer ball north, against 
grains that may once have been 
compacted to sandstone, then 
broken back to grains, bumbling 
and driven and free again, 
shrinking along the broadening edge.
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