Grace

Two years ago, you were in this exact spot.
The dune fences were new then,
not even greyed with weather.
Each line is straight and true.

The sea grass was freshly planted
in perfect straight lines. Rows,
like a well-tended garden.
It was beautiful and somehow surreal.

Nothing is that perfect. Not for long.
If you are lucky, you get a season or two
before weather and time and shifting sands
take their toll. Leave their mark

and life becomes a litany of repairs,
often well done, and yet
that moment of perfection passes.
You could mourn them, and you often have. Deeply.

The odd thing, or at least odd to you,
is how much beauty is left after the storms.
A different kind of beauty. A different kind of love,
of what is, not what was.

What is, is a different kind of beauty.
Something a bit wilder. Less predictable.
Less perfect but more real,
be it love or faith or work or life or art or….

There is beauty in the unpredictable brokenness
and those that survive, a bit less straight,
far more interesting, with better stories
and better scars.

About this poem

Another of my reflection poems as I approach 70.

About fences on the dunes. About that whole list of love, faith and work, and art. There are moments of perfection, but they are few. We have to learn to love and see the beauty in what is. And when we do live in that place of grace? It is we who are changed, not the scenery.

The photograph was taken at Herring Run, near Provincetown, Mass.

Be well. Travel wisely.