Causeways

The causeway reaches out to a thin spit of land,
a road of stone and discarded concrete,
solid and straight and strong,
leading to a distant lighthouse.

From a distance, the causeway seems stable,
but closer up you see
that the stones are not even, but piled on on the other,
often at angles,
an easy walk when the weather is calm and bright,
but easily made treacherous by storms, dark
and high tides,

Seagulls use the stones to break open oysters,
dropping them from the sky
to shatter, exposing the shellfish’s bodies
that barely have a chance to writhe
in confusion or pain before they become lunch,
their shattered shells the only evidence
of their existance,
and that, only until the next high tide.
Nothing, it seems,
is as safe as it appears.

Still, you choose to cross at dusk,
in need of light and land
and a new view of the ocean
rolling, ever changing, and beautifully
dangerous.

About this poem

Even when I know the path, it never ends up being as easy as it appears. And that’s OK.

The picture was taken in Provincetown, MA.

Tom