Acadia National Park, Maine

Acadian Ontology

Printed memories preserve
the cool, sprinkling summer morning
as I descend

the framework of wooden steps
to the small deserted bay
on the Maine coast.

Searching for adventure,
I crave profundity
in nature’s beauty.

An otherworldliness
that I can’t quite grasp
pervades sound and sights,

a significance that bursts forth
and dissipates too quickly,
forgotten forever if not for photos.

Beneath shroud of fog,
the reticence of curtained shorelines
eerily amplifies utterances of waves

pounding the rock beach,
a box of marbles
constantly tipped back and forth.

Gray and dull from a distance,
underfoot the collection of rocks
reveals unsuspected beauty:

oranges and browns,
yellows, grays and blacks,
some speckled, some swirled,

some rounded, whole and eternal,
others chipped and deformed,
all polished in oceans’ tumbler.

Haphazard stone menagerie
makes grace impossible
as I tread with reverent clumsiness.

©2018 Kenneth W. Arthur