My friend Marcia has a poster from a Cape Cod art exhibition. I have stared at it for hours. Most transfixing for me is the citation by Pablo Neruda: "I need an ocean to teach me whatever it is I need to know - be it music or consciousness."

Wandering along the shore I often think - here is where my problems end. Beyond this, beyond me, nothing but expanse. Nothing but salt smell, waves waves waves, wind. I'm so small, we are all so small, nothing but this matters here. Somehow this helps.

maggie and milly and molly and may

maggie and milly and molly and may
went down to the beach(to play one day)

and maggie discovered a shell that sang
so sweetly she couldn't remember her troubles,and

milly befriended a stranded star
whose rays five languid fingers were;

and molly was chased by a horrible thing
which raced sideways while blowing bubbles:and

may came home with a smooth round stone
as small as a world and as large as alone.

For whatever we lose(like a you or a me)
it's always ourselves we find in the sea

-e e cummings