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diff --git a/75895-0.txt b/75895-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..538337d --- /dev/null +++ b/75895-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4169 @@ + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75895 *** + + +[Illustration] + + + + + The + Great + Beach + + + + + Books by John Hay: + + + A PRIVATE HISTORY + THE RUN + NATURE’S YEAR + A SENSE OF NATURE (with Arline Strong) + THE GREAT BEACH + + + + + The + Great + Beach + + JOHN HAY + + + ILLUSTRATED BY DAVID GROSE + + + Doubleday & Company, Inc. + Garden City, New York + 1963 + + + + + Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 63-18198 + Copyright © 1963 by John Hay + All Rights Reserved + Printed in the United States of America + First Edition + + + + + To Conrad and Mary Aiken + Henry and Gertrude Kittredge + + + + + Foreword + + +I suppose that anyone writing another book about Cape Cod can be +convicted of temerity, in the face of such predecessors as the +three Henrys--Thoreau, Beston, and Kittredge--as well as Dr. Wyman +Richardson. However, each to his own eye. I write about the Cape +because of the circumstances of living there, long enough to have begun +to learn a little about it; also, the coast is long and the sea will +not stop with the outer beach. All Americans who not only love nature +but stand in awe of it will be more and more hard put to explain their +reasons, as we crowd our magnificent land and diminish it in proportion +to the size of our demands. In _The Great Beach_ are some of my reasons. + +I am grateful to Dr. Alfred C. Redfield, Dr. John M. Zeigler, Mr. +Joseph Chace, Dr. Loren C. Petry, Dr. Howard L. Sanders, and Dr. Ransom +Somers for various assistance during the writing of this book, and hope +they will not have any serious objections to the way I have used such +information as they may have given me. This book also owes a great deal +to the discerning and useful criticisms made by Richard K. Winslow, of +Doubleday. + + + + + Contents + + + _Foreword_ vii + + I--From a Distance 1 + + II--An Unimagined Frontier 8 + + III--The Resources of the Sea 18 + + IV--A Rhythmic Shore 26 + + V--Dune Country 35 + + VI--A Change in History 46 + + VII--Barren Grounds 56 + + VIII--A Landscape in Motion 63 + + IX--Who Owns the Beach? 76 + + X--Deer Week 87 + + XI--Impermanence Takes Its Stand 93 + + XII--The Depths of Sight 99 + + XIII--The Flight of Birds 107 + + XIV--The Marsh 116 + + XV--The Uses of Light 124 + + + + + The + Great + Beach + + + + + I + + From a Distance + + +The Pilgrims who reached Cape Cod in 1620 had heard of it before. It +got its name in 1602 and had been touched on by European seamen at +least a century before that, and so when the Pilgrims “... fell in with +that land which is called Cape Cod; the which being made and certainly +known to be it, they were not a little joyful.” + +Their coming had taken a long time, and they had passed over “a tedious +and dreadful” sea; but as Bradford’s history relates it further: “... +they now had no friends to welcome them, nor inns to entertain or +refresh their weather-beaten bodies, no houses or much less towns to +repair to, to seek for succor.” + +“And for ye season it was winter, and they that know ye winters of +that country know them to be sharp and violent, and subject to cruell +and fierce storms, dangerous to travel to known places, much more to +search an unknown coast. Besides, what could they see but a hideous +wilderness, full of wild beasts and wild men? and what multitudes there +might be of them they knew not. Neither could they, as it were, go up +to ye top of Pisgah, to view from this wilderness a more goodly country +to feed their hopes; for which way soever they turned their eyes (save +upward to the heavens) they could have little solace or content in +respect of outward objects. For summer being done, all things stand +upon them with a weather-beaten face; and the whole country, full of +woods and thickets, represented a wild and savage hue. If they looked +behind them, there was the mighty ocean which they had passed, and was +now as a main barrier and gulf to separate them from the civil parts of +the world.” + +Now, nearly 350 years later, that lone land reaching out into the +mighty ocean seems to be full of the “solace and content with respect +to outward objects” which the Pilgrims lacked. Roads, gas stations, +shopping centers, and a continually increasing number of houses, +proclaim it as human territory, another populated home ground from +which we have to go far to be separated from civilization. The simple, +raw existence which the Pilgrims not only endured but anticipated has +been replaced by a world of goods, which is not to say that we do not +have to have a fortitude of our own, made inevitable, in great measure, +by the very abundance we have achieved. + +The Cape Cod of 1620 was more or less the same in its general outline +as it is now, although the original woodland has been cut down, or +burned over, to be replaced by less varied trees, much of the topsoil +has eroded and blown away, and the shore line altered in the course +of natural change. Superficially at least, it has been tamed, and in +most areas the primal, unknown wildness is hard to imagine. The last +thing you would expect to find on pulling in to a parking lot above a +Cape Cod beach would be desolate wilderness, though if there is one, +wilderness being in short supply these days, it would be well worth the +effort to discover; but the sea, from which we are separated both by +its vastness and the difference between water and air, could answer the +description, and also the sands that define its limits. + +Cape Cod’s Outer Beach, stretching for forty miles from the tip of the +Cape at Provincetown to the end of Monomoy Island is not undiscovered +country. Many men have walked it. Planes skim over it in no time at +all, and the beach buggies bruise it with impunity. Still, the marks we +make on it are all erased in time. The sea and sand insist on their +own art. The beach is in a continuous state of remaking and invites +discovery. It was first called “Great” so far as I know, by Henry David +Thoreau. Otherwise it has been known for a long time as the Outer +Beach, the Outer Shore, or in more familiar terms as the Back Side. Now +it forms a major part of the new National Seashore Park--in the process +of establishment--and is therefore not owned by individuals, or the +towns in which they reside, but by the people of the United States. It +is under national protection and possession at the same time, so how we +approach and treat its future is a very great responsibility, which is +appropriate enough. + +The beach, standing out against the sea, is a further limit to America +before it shelves off into the Atlantic depths. For most travelers it +means the end of a highway, a place of summer sands. It is in fact one +end of a whole continent of roads, of communications, of the vast and +intricate business of human passage. In a sense it used to be the other +way around. With all the known parts of the civilized world behind +them, the Pilgrims found in this beach not an end but a beginning, +whatever it might entail, and that of course, is why they went there. + +This is an age in which we are able to ignore or bypass the “tedious +and dreadful” highway of the sea--city dwellers, road, rocket, car, and +plane makers that we are--to the extent that we too may find it again +for the first time. The beach, lying by the sea and sea invested, is +always ready for a new kind of attention in a new world. That is the +nature of the place. Cape Cod itself, now and ultimately, is at the +disposition of the sea rather than human enterprise. + +The Cape is a narrow peninsula, a little terminal arm jutting out in to +the Atlantic, constructed of loose material left by the last glacier +some 20,000 years ago. Its upper part, starting beyond High Head at +Truro and forming the Provincetown hook, or hood, is of recent origin. +It lacks the cliffs that stand over the beach from a mile or so north +of Highland Light to as far as the Nauset Coast Guard Beach at Eastham, +and for the most part has a history of deposition and accretion rather +than removal. It was formed by storms, tides, and currents, piling +in sand and other materials from the shore to the south, over bars +and reefs of glacial debris. The sand is still packing up around Race +Point, as it is also adding to the shore south of Nauset to the tip end +of Monomoy Island, while storms take it away from other parts of the +shore line. Within living memory a large island called Billinsgate, on +which there was a lighthouse and at one time a “Try Yard” for whales, +disappeared under the surface of Cape Cod Bay. It now appears as a +shoal at low tide and is otherwise covered over by water, although the +rocky lighthouse foundations still show above the surface in all but +the highest tides. On the Bay side the shore line has been filled in in +some areas, while it has receded in others, revealing for example, the +bones of horses and cows in the bank at the head of a beach, which were +once presumably, some distance behind it. Many a cottage owner after +a storm has found his living-room floor with nothing below it but the +tide. + +Over the centuries great changes have occurred in the nature and extent +of marshlands, inlets, ponds, estuaries, and beaches. No year, or +even month, goes by without some alteration in the shore line. These +changes, not always obvious, sometimes violent and immediate, are +not such as to threaten the physical existence of Cape Cod for many +thousands of years to come, but they are of the kind that accentuate +its close relationship to water and tides and weather. As the map +makers are well aware, it is not a static piece of land. It moves. + +The trunk of the Cape starts out from the mainland and then that +slender curving arm juts up and out into the water with a kind of brave +assertion beyond the continental limits; but it is the shape and sweep +of waves and sands, of molding and at the same time of pulling away +that strikes you most about it, as if it were a conception to be made +or discarded, standing out in its trial. The whole physical earth, in +spite of its apparent constancies, its orbital speed, the speed of +light, the regularity of the tides, the fine, exact balances to life, +is subject to rhythmic change, or in a deeper sense, to re-creation. + +From 20,000 feet up, Cape Cod looks very much as it does on topographic +maps, its heights and depths eliminated, a flat level land of sandy +margins and wide green patches emerging out of the sea. In fact, +with all its glacial lakes and ponds--between three and four hundred +in number--its streams, marshes, bays, coves, and inlets, it might +seem to consist as much of water as of earth. On a clear day at a +lower altitude, skirting or passing over the shore line, you can see +configurations of sand, the slopes and curves of the shoals, the white +swirls and scallops under water made by currents and tides. The sea +sparkles, and explodes with light where the sun strikes it directly. +The spilling waves make small white accents along the shore. Tilting +in the heights, you get a sense of mobility on a great scale. All the +close, pressing impressions of locality are replaced by the roving of +the waters, the islands of the mapped world floating there, the height +and weight and emptiness of the sky. + +However far their ageless impunity may reach, the world’s argument +is that Cape Cod and its Outer Beach are under human guidance, +surveillance, and authority. Those who come there bring their own +distance with them. If we are not yet world-minded, we are world +engaged. This is not a cast-off, self-sufficient countryside any +longer, and it has lost most, if not all, of the look of a bleak, +cut-over, and yet habitable seaside land that it had in the nineteenth +century, when the inhabitants still depended on the sea for their +livelihood, when you could smell the fish and hear the sermons on its +shores. + +An estimated 300,000 people visit the Cape during the summer, or even +more, depending on the tides of economy and change, but after they +have gone there are 80,000 year-round residents left, with more to be +expected in the future. So, in spite of its stretches of comparatively +uninhabited sands and its wooded areas, the Cape is caught up in the +human scheme of things, and we can hardly avoid looking at it with +modern eyes, for good or ill. We own it, and that is the way we are +inclined to see it, not for its sake but ours. All roads lead to a Cape +Cod beach, or to Los Angeles, or Yellowstone. Every place is invested +with human importunity, and the crowd will tell you where you are. + +Drive down any of the great concrete highways of the nation in the +heat of the summer along with thousands, or millions, through a +landscape whose scale affected our ideas of size to begin with, and you +realize that Americans have an affinity for distance--which is also +a capacity for laying the distance bare. We have learned this from +our continent. We have learned how to exploit, turning the native, +active riches of a great land into passive objects of our will, and we +have taken a greatness from it for our own. While we have transformed +our surroundings, we ourselves have been transformed without being +altogether aware of the debt we owe. + +Abstracted, in the summer months especially, to the terms of the +contemporary world, some of Cape Cod’s more crowded areas have a +familiar, continental look. They are covered with asphalt, cars, +motels, cheap housing, shops full of grotesque souvenirs with no +relation to the place they serve, and they amount, when you come right +down to it, to receiving grounds for power, made by a conquering +civilization. Will it be the same on the moon? The great scale is in +us, the effort and the risk of desolation. + +The beach’s openness is nearly filled with bodies, lying everywhere, +or sitting, talking, absorbing the sun, or dashing suddenly into the +relatively cold water, shouting, jumping, and splashing there, and +then returning, flesh in warmth and radiance, performing the blessed +ritual of doing nothing. + +This hot surface, this wide open brilliance of sand, water, and sky +is a summertime release for those in want. We claim it, and fill it +with human demands; and yet it keeps its distance, resisting our bland +assumption of authority. + +Clouds like heaps of spun silk float up across the sky. The low waves +splash along the sands, very lightly to the ear. Surfcasting rods are +lodged in the sand, leaning out toward the water. Offshore, a white +tern rises fluttering after a dive into the water, and a herring gull, +large and deliberate by contrast, beats low over the surface. Behind +all the crowd and the voices, hanging over like the intense and heavy +sun, is a stillness, a suspension. Perhaps it is the soul of summer, +that gives a provision of relief for those in want; and if we wait and +watch there might be more to this beach and sea than what we came for. +Waiting, in fact, seems to be its essence, since it gives no answer to +what it is, being a wide, surface brightness, a tidal beat, a sounding +whose monumental depths are concealed, suggesting too, that we might +wait for it forever and know nothing. + + + + + II + + An Unimagined Frontier + + +One afternoon in the middle of June I set off from Race Point at +Provincetown, carrying a pack and sleeping bag, with Nauset Light Beach +in Eastham, twenty-five miles away, as my destination, and my purpose +simply to be on the beach, to see it and feel it for whatever it turned +out to be, since most of my previous visits had been of the sporadic +hop, skip, and jump kind to which our automotivated lives seem to lead +us. + +The summer turmoil was not yet in full voice but the barkers were there +on behalf of beach-buggy tours over the dunes, and a sight-seeing +plane flew by; cars drew up and droned away, and families staggered +up from the beach with their load of towels, shoes, bags, or portable +radios. The beach did not contain quite the great wealth of paper, +cans, bottles, and general garbage that it would later on, in July and +August, but one of the first things to catch my eye as I lunged down on +to the sands was an electric-light bulb floating in the water, a can of +shaving soap, the remains of a rubber doll, and a great scattering of +sliced onions--probably thrown off a fishing boat. + +The air was dancing with heat. The sun seemed to have the power to +glare through all things. With the exception of a camper’s tent on the +upper part of the beach, and a few isolated gray shacks perched on +dune tops behind it, there was nothing ahead but the wide belt of sand +curving around one unseen corner after another with the flat easing +and stretching sea beside me. Two boys waved to me from where they were +perched high up on a dune, and I waved back. + +Then I heard an insistent, protesting bird note behind me, and a piping +plover flew past. It was very pale, and sand colored, being a wild +personification of the place it lived in. It suddenly volplaned down +the slope of the beach ahead of me, fluttering, half disappearing in +holes made by human feet, side-winged, edged away, still fluttering, +in the direction of the shore line, and when it reached the water, +satisfied, evidently, that it had led me far enough, it flew back. +These birds nest on the beach above the high-tide line, and like a +number of other species, try to lead intruders away when they come too +close to their eggs and young. + +With high, grating cries, terns flew over the beach and low over the +water, occasionally plummeting in after fish. Among the larger species, +principally common terns, there were some least terns--a tiny, dainty +version of the “sea swallow,” chasing each other back and forth. They +have the graceful, sharply defined bodies and deep wingbeat of the +other terns, but in their littleness and excitability they seem to show +a kind of baby anger. + +Also there were tree swallows gathering and perching on the hot, +glittering sand, and on smooth gray driftwood just below the dunes. It +was a band of them, adults, and young hatched during the early spring, +chittering and shining with their brilliant blue-green backs and white +bellies. + +It seemed to me that out of these birds--my unwilling or indifferent +companions--came a protest, the protest of a desert in its beauty, an +ancient sea land claiming its rarity, with these rare inhabitants, each +with its definition and assertion, each having the color and precision +of life and place, out of an unknown depth of devising. + +Behind the beach at Provincetown and Truro are eight square miles of +dunes, making a great series of dips and pockets, innumerable smooth +scourings, hollows within wide hollows. Standing below their rims are +hills, mounds, and cones, chiseled by the wind, sometimes flattened +on the top like mesas. These dunes give an effect of motion, rolling, +dipping, roving, dropping down and curving up like sea surfaces +offshore. When I climbed the bank to see them I heard the clear, +accomplished notes of a song sparrow. There were banks of rugosa roses +in bloom, with white or pink flowers sending off a lovely scent, and +the dunes were patched with the new green of beach grass, bayberry, and +beach plum, many of the shrubs looking clipped and rounded, held down +by wind and salt spray. The purple and pink flowers of the beach pea, +with purselike petals, were in bloom too, contrasting with dusty miller +with leaf surfaces like felt, a soft, clear grayish-green. Down at the +bottom of the hollows the light and wind catching heads of bunch grass, +pinkish and brown, waved continually; and the open sandy slopes were +swept as by a free hand with curving lines and striations. + +A mile or so at sea, over the serene flatness of the waters, a fishing +boat moved very slowly by. I started down the beach again, following +another swallow that was twisting and dipping in leafy flight along the +upper edge of the beach. On the tide line slippery green sea lettuce +began to glimmer as if it had an inner fire, reflecting the evening +sun. I stopped somewhere a mile or two north of Highland Light in +Truro, built a small fire of driftwood to heat up a can of food, and +watched a bar appearing above the water as the tide ebbed. Low white +waves conflicted and ran across a dome of sand, occasionally bursting +up like hidden geysers. + +The terns were still crying and diving as the sun’s metal light, +slanting along the shore, began to turn a soft yellow, to spread and +bloom. They hurried back and forth, as if to make use of the time left +them, and fell sharply like stones into the shimmering road of light +that led across the water. + +Where I live on the upper Cape, that part of it which lies between the +Cape Cod canal and Orleans, the land heads out directly to the sea, +toward the east from the continental west. Cape Cod Bay lies to the +north and Nantucket Sound to the south. The arm of the lower Cape turns +in the Orleans area and heads up on a north-south axis, the head of +it, or hand if you like, curving around so that the sandy barrens in +the Provincetown area are oriented in an east to west direction again. +I am used to looking toward Kansas to see the setting sun, and from +the curving shore line at Truro I had the illusion that it was setting +in the north and that when it rose the next morning it appeared to be +located not very far from where it set, a matter of ninety or a hundred +degrees. In fact it does set closer to the north at this time of year, +and along the flat ocean horizon this becomes more clear to the eye, as +well as its relative position at dawn and its arc during the day. On +the open beach in spring and summer you are not only at the sun’s mercy +in a real sense, but you are also under wider skies. In the comparative +isolation of the beach, which is convex, slanting steeply toward the +water, and therefore hides its distances, I felt reoriented, turned +out and around through no effort of my own, and faced in many possible +directions. + +Shortly before sundown a beach buggy, curtains at its windows and a +dory attached, lumbered slowly down some preordained ruts in the sand, +and then a smaller one passed by at the top of the low dunes behind me. +Fishing poles were slung along the outside of both machines. It was +getting to be a good time to cast for striped bass. + +I sat on the sands and listened to the sonorous heave and splash of +low waves. The sun, like a colossal red balloon filled with water, was +sinking in to the horizon. It swelled, flattened, and disappeared with +a final rapidity, leaving a foaming, fiery band behind it. I suddenly +heard the wild, trembling cry of a loon behind me, and then saw it fly +over, heading north. The wind grew cool, after a hot day when the light +shone on metallic, glittering slow waters, and sharp, pointed beach +grasses clicked together, while I watched the darkness falling around +me. + +A small seaplane flew by at low altitude, parallel to the shore. A +sliver of a moon appeared and then a star; and then single lights began +to shine on the horizon, while from the direction of Highland Light an +arm of light shot up and swung around. A fishing boat passed slowly by +with a light at its masthead and two--port and starboard--at its stern. +A few night-flying moths fluttered near me. The sky began to be massive +with its stars. I thought of night’s legitimacies now appearing, the +natural claim of all these single lights on darkness, and then, making +my bed in a hollow just above the beach, I lowered down into infinity, +waking up at about one o’clock in the morning to the sound of shouting, +a strange direct interruption to the night. It was the loud implacable +voice of the human animal, something very wild in itself, filling the +emptiness. + +“For Chrisake bring her higher up! I can’t have her dig in that way.” +The tide had come in and someone was having trouble maneuvering his +beach buggy along the thin strip of sand now available. + +The light of dawn opened my eyes again before the sun showed red on +the horizon, and I first saw the tiny drops of dew on tips and stems +of beach grass that surrounded me. A sparrow sang, and then, somewhere +behind the dunes, a prairie warbler with sweet notes on an ascending +scale. + +When I started walking again I caught sight of a young fox. Its fur +was still soft and woolly and its gait had a cub’s limpness where it +moved along the upper edge of the beach. I wished the young one well, +though I suspected it might have an uncomfortable life. In spite of +an excessive population of rabbits, and their role in keeping it down, +foxes have not been too highly regarded on the Cape. In recent years +they seem to have been a skinny and somewhat dilapidated bunch for the +most part, suffering from parasitic skin diseases, and ticks in season. +I once saw a fox out on an asphalt road sliding along on his chin and +side, shoving and dragging himself in such a frantic way that I began +to feel very itchy myself. I have heard them referred to in scornful +way as “spoilers,” fond of scavenging and rolling in dead meat. In +other words, they are smelly, diseased and, to add another epithet +“tricky,” not to be trusted. + +Yet this cub exploring an early morning on the sands had a future, +however limited, and I remembered the lively trot of foxes when they +are in good health, and their intelligence and curiosity, and simply +their right to whatever special joys they might inherit. + +I carried a pair of field glasses with me, along with the somewhat +thoughtlessly assembled equipment I wore on my back and which seemed +increasingly heavy as time went on. When not too conscious of my burden +I would use the glasses to bring an inland or offshore bird closer +to me. I noticed five eider ducks across the troughs of the waves, a +remnant of the thousands that winter off the Cape along with such other +sea birds as brant, Canada geese, scoters, mergansers, old squaws, +and various members of the auk family. I passed a dead gannet lying +on the sand. It had been badly oiled, reminding me of the hazards of +jettisoned tanker or freighter oil to all these water birds which land +on the sea to rest or feed. + +There were a number of kingbirds on the dune rims, and they kept +dropping down over the beach in their special way, to hover with fast +wingbeat and flutter after flying insects. I heard the grating call of +redwings, indicating marshy areas inland of the beach, but the cliffs +above began to increase until they were 100 to 150 feet high or more, +and the sun was so fierce that I had little interest in trying to scale +them to see what was on the other side. + +I plodded on, noticing very little after a while, my attention blunted, +reduced to seeing that one foot got in front of the other. The more +level upper parts of the beach provided fairly good walking, but the +sand was soft, and to relieve my aching muscles I would then angle +down to the water’s edge where it was firmer, and there I was obliged +to walk with one leg below the other because of the inclination of the +beach. So I would return to the upper beach again and push ahead. I +walked on, very hot and slow, seeing no one for miles until I came up +to a group of bathers below a road and parking lot giving access to the +beach, of the kind that are scattered along its reaches; and there I +refilled my canteen at a cottage and went on. + +I found that if I rested too long during this hike I had little desire +to go on again, so I confined myself to an army “break” of ten minutes +every hour. Renewed walking unlimbered me a little and the wind off the +water cooled my sweating skin. I listened to the sound of the waves. +In addition to their rhythmic plunge and splash, their breathing, they +clashed occasionally with a sound like the breaking of heavy glass, the +falling of timber, or a load of bricks. + +I passed what was left of two shipwrecks during the day, a reminder of +the dangers that still face ships along this coast with its fogs, its +shifting winds, its storms, the hidden, treacherous offshore bars. The +sands often reveal the timbers of old ships. One day their ribs, sodden +and dark, barnacle encrusted, may reach up out of oblivion, and not +long after that the water buries them under tons of sand. From them a +local history calls out for recognition. Thousands of ships over three +centuries wrecked on shoals, engulfed by violent seas, men with the +dark of doom in them, to drown or to survive, and only a few timbers +left to declare the ultimate dangers and their terror. + +I was not in Death Valley, or on a raft at sea. My walk was not +unusually long, and I could leave the beach if I had to, but the +enormity of the area filled me more and more. It had so much in it that +was without recourse. Its emptiness, the great tidal range beyond it +and through it, the raw heartbeat of the waves, the implacable sun, +established the kind of isolation and helplessness in me which the +commerce and community of our lives tries so hard to disguise. Even the +birds, I began to think, were more secure than I. They had their strong +bright threads of cognizance to the areas they came to, the water, the +sands, the marsh. They were fixed in entity and grace, eating what was +theirs by evolution to be eaten, using land and air in the ways that +had come to them, knowing this place and all places like it in terms of +its bounds and boundlessness, meeting its naked eye in the ways they +had been sent to do. + +I started off in the morning admiring the brilliance of the sun, the +small shadows from the dunes and across the beach, through driftwood, +isolated beach plants and tidal wrack, with the wide flooding of light +ahead and the variation in reflected light across the sea. I felt the +sea moving quietly beside me. The waves heaved and sighed and spray was +tossed lightly above the sand. Everything was continuous, untroubled, +and deliberate; but as the day wore on the sun became my enemy, and +I had very little rage or resource in me to fight it with. I was not +fitted to environmental stability, like a bird, or fox or fish. I found +myself in an area of whose reaches I had never been wholly aware, and +in me there was no mastery. The sun was not only hostile. It was an +ultimate, an impossibility; and the waters beside me began to deepen +from their pleasant daytime sparkle and freshness into an incalculable +realm which I had hardly entered. I was touching on an unimagined +frontier. + +I spent my second night on the beach a few miles from Nauset Light +where I left it the following morning. It was in the South Wellfleet +area, and as I started to sleep on the sand a little above the +high-tide line, I remembered that this was about the same place where +a fishing boat had been wrecked two years before and two men drowned. +I had seen the boat, with its cargo of fish, and some of the men’s +clothing strewn along the shore, and I had heard a little about the +depths of their ordeal. Their story haunted me; and then I began to +feel that I might be caught by the tide while I was asleep. There were +only about twelve feet between the bottom of a steep cliff and the +high-tide line. I would soon be lying on a narrow shelf at the sea’s +edge. So as the vague thought of being engulfed began to invade me, +I took up my pack and sleeping bag again, retraced my steps down the +beach, and found a way to the top of the cliff, where I spent the night +in another hollow. + +The light of dawn, lifting quickly out of the sea, flooding into the +range of low-lying land, woke me up again, and it signaled to the +birds, who started singing in all the thickets and heath around me with +a sweet, high, shrill intensity, a kind of automatic worship; and after +a while they quieted down again. + +Little dirt roads dropped back from headlands through green slopes +covered with bearberry and patches of yellow-flowered Hudsonia, or +“poverty grass,” and there were hollows dipping back inland, and woods +of stunted pitch pine. From the top of the cliff I watched the sun +starting to send light running across the blue table of the sea, making +it glitter and move. The intensity of light and heat began to grow +steadily as I walked down the beach again for the last stretch toward +Nauset. + +The beach is not so very far from where I live, or for that matter +where anyone lives on the Cape. It is a few miles down the road, beyond +the trees; and yet when I came back from my walk I felt as if I had +been at enormous remove from my surroundings, caught out where I might +have feared to be. The long line of sand and surf, the intensity of the +sun, the cover of stars had come close enough to put me in council with +that which had no answers. I was in awe of nature; and I understood +that the sun and sea could be our implacable enemies. It was in this +context that I saw our human world as subject to a stature that it +never made. + + + + + III + + The Resources of the Sea + + +Sit inland on the ground on a sunny day, and color, shadows, sound, +substance, novelty in great detail, invade the smallest areas. One +flower may attract many species of insects, brilliantly patterned +and colored, flicking around, crawling, eating, gathering pollen, in +any number of arresting ways, and the growth of plants around you, +the shape of leaves, the general stir of things comes running like a +carnival. + +On the beach you might see a lone dragger lifting and falling, moving +slowly parallel to the shore, beyond the measured fall of the green +surf. A herring gull flies by. The vast sky swings overhead; the wind +flies down the sand. Purple stones, driftwood, an occasional dead skate +or dogfish comes to your attention as you walk on. A black crow pecks +at seaweed far ahead. A sanderling flits by. You notice a finger sponge +attached to a large mussel or a sea scallop, broken loose and washed +in from offshore beds, and that seems to be all, in a relatively empty +world; but between these single things, a grain of sand, a stone, a +bird or bird track, a wave, you become conscious of a bounty of space. + +The sea and its shores are still not caught, still relatively immune to +human claims. Fill them with knowledge and with crowds and they still +escape us, outrunning us like the sunlight on the water. Specifically, +this age which is able to measure everything but mystery, might tell +you just how capacious the oceans are. They comprise two thirds of the +earth’s surface; they have a close relationship to the atmosphere and +are in large measure responsible for our weather; and we know, with the +assurance of conquerors, that if all else fails we may be able to save +the human race from dying of thirst and starvation by extracting water +and food from them, providing our atomic wastes do not prohibit it. We +are also learning how to mine the ocean floors for their minerals, how +to harness the tides, and how to use their depths for concealment. + +Oceanography is one of the great modern sciences and it has revealed +mountains, rifts, plains, and canyons on a scale that would astonish us +if we saw them on earth, as it has also brought us more knowledge of +marine animals at all depths. It has made great contributions to the +restless modern mind. How can we look at the sea without at some time +thinking of our earth’s submerged geology, gigantic, uneroded by wind, +sun, or rain, in calm waters inhabited by strange aquatic lives? + +Strange is still the word for them. No amount of assessment of the +sea’s contents quite translates them for us. What, for example, is a +fish? What is that flat creature the skate lying there on the sand, +with its tough hide and the small slit of a mouth on the same side as +its belly? + +There is an aquarium at Woods Hole with a collection of many of the +kinds of fish that inhabit the waters off Cape Cod. They seem foreign, +weird, almost unexampled when you see them in their captured state. I +saw a woman standing in front of one of the windows looking at some +toadfish, little fat animals with great mouths, squat, with round-edged +fleshy fins that gave the appearance of warts and knobs, expertly +camouflaged in varied patterns so that they can at once sink in and +become a part of the bottom: “Oh!” she cried. “Horrible!” + +All the others there become more than the term “fish” when you see +them suspended behind glass, floating in their own world of water, +strangers in the perfection of their own remoteness. Their dull jaws +open and close as they breathe. Their filmy, diaphanous fins wave +lightly and loosely. Their flicking eyes pass you by, with a kind of +self-enclosed abstractness, a stiffness, as if they had not seen you +at all, and no doubt the blurred human form means very little to them. +The glass separates the world of water from the world of air. Their +bodies curve deliberately and slowly, and then suddenly switch into an +unsuspected quickness, while we tourists shove and crowd and gawk from +our unbridgeable distance. + +At other windows the rays and skates, with fins fused to bodies like +wafers, wave through the water. Bottom fish suddenly disappear in +puffs of sand. The lean, long sand shark, primitive, tough, swims with +infinite smoothness back and forth, an expression of coldness, an +incarnate simplicity. + +They are all unknown, not of our race, and giving the unknown the old +credit of fear, they _are_ horrible, monsters in their realm, with +intercommunications, receptions, that we are unable to touch. + +An aquarium is a luxury. Most of the fish we see are dead, a boatload +of wet, cold, slippery white and gray flounder, cod, or haddock just +come into port, or dying, like a striped bass caught by a fisherman +casting off the beach--flipping on the sands with all its cool +brightness still alive, a slippery, lucent sea green. The color loss is +quick as a fish dies, leaving the rippling shades of its great medium +behind. + +The world of ocean color comes inland in the spring with the alewives +that migrate from salt water up inlets, streams, and estuaries on both +sides of Cape Cod. They are silver, like the sea they come from, with +backs of gray green, and in a shallow stream they seem to reflect the +colors of the season, having in fact the ability to change the pigment +in their skin so as to blend with their surroundings. They mouth the +water and stare forward with their big eyes, running upstream with the +unswerving directness of their need to reproduce--which gives us at +least one reassuring alliance with them!--and being of a fairly large +size compared with most fresh-water fish, they have a look of marine +capacities, a fast-schooling fish made for water masses, great sweeping +currents, and tides. + +Even the alewives, which migrate by the hundred thousands, are only +suggestive of the far running but hidden nature of the oceanic depths. +Most of us, failing a glass-bottom boat or a glass-sided submarine, +have to stand on the beach and take in the vast motions of the sea +surface with only the vaguest idea of what is happening below. +Sometimes it looks like a bowl of dazzling, dashing light, and at +others a gray, monotonous range under a raw wind with white-groined +waves constantly moving across its distances. The sea takes all the +light and air, the storms, clouds, moon, and stars, in endless, various +reflections over its watery reaches, with a monumental acceptance. + +Are there not a thousand ways to describe the sea which in their sum +amount to inscrutability? How can you translate its abundance even by +counting so many thousands of protozoa in a drop of water? Who can +fathom the range of appetite it contains, the ferocity of the life its +amplitude allows? + +One day in early fall I traveled from the Cape with a party of people +in a chartered boat, heading for an area some ten or fifteen miles +out. The offshore breezes coasted over smooth, sun-bright waters that +carried some of the land’s litter with them, sticks, leaves, petals, +and even butterflies. At one point a dragonfly skimmed past us; and +silky seeds of milkweed and dandelions went sailing and twisting by to +land eventually where they could never take root. Farther out, oceanic +birds like jaegers, shearwaters, and phalaropes began to appear. When +we were plowing out across the open ocean with its short-crested waves +we came upon a broad path of waters which were foaming and flashing +and leaping, a white windrow of fish flipping violently above the +surface, lasting perhaps a mile or more. Evidently we had come upon an +area that was rich in plankton, attracting many small fish, attacked in +turn by larger ones. What we were seeing was part of the classic food +chain that leads, in terms of size, from microscopic plants and animals +to whales. The sea was splitting its sides with riches, and a kind of +savagery that most of us hardly dare admit, although as a race we are +not so far removed from it ourselves. + +As the glass on the aquarium window separates the spectator from the +world of the fish, so the long nearly unbroken line of the Outer Beach +stands between us and the vast, alien reaches of the North Atlantic. +It is not _our_ natural environment, and so we can legitimately call +it treacherous, sullen, cold, and grim, and even in its hours of +brilliance and warmth it seems to lead us off in no terms we can call +familiar. It is full of fickle changes, fogs, and storms, unpredictable +shifts in mood. We are still unable to set forth on the open ocean +without the skill of a sailor or the protection that a technical +civilization affords us. + +Yet our neighbor the sea provides the amplitude and even, being still +relatively unaffected by human ownership, the regenerative power of +what is both dangerous and undiscovered in the universe. All its shores +are washed by a capacity. If it is constant in peril for us, and for +its own voracious inhabitants, it is also beneficent as a medium +for life. Those tidal rhythms, watery colors, and reflections are +translated into living organisms whose uncounted numbers are assured by +their vast and relatively temperate home. + +We only see a small part of those numbers, at least consciously, +since sea water may be swarming with invisible life, but during +spring, summer, and early fall, the sea’s bounty often reveals itself. +Countless moon jellies for example, pulse through waters inland of the +sea during the springtime or in Cape Cod Bay, where I have seen comb +jellies in great profusion during late summer. Watching them, it is +not only their primitive, brainless nature, or their numbers, that has +seemed incredible to me, but their approximation to their environment. + +It has been estimated that jellyfish are 95 per cent water. Dried out, +they resolve into almost nothing. How could such evanescent creatures +be predators, killing and ingesting living organisms? When you see such +transparent flower-animals it is even difficult to believe that they +have the nerves and muscles to be able to pulse through the water; +but their chemical balance, their physical responses have a direct +relationship with the sea water, whose salts are in them. Salt water is +a liquid medium for life, a blood that circulates through the creatures +of the sea. So close is the association of the sea and its lives, +though each species has its unique kind of locomotion, respiration, +aggression, its own way of feeding and being food, joining in the +employment of energy, that it is almost tempting to inquire whether the +sea does not have an organic nature of its own. I will not get very far +by suggesting that a medium and environment “knows” anything beyond +what all nature knows, but this primal “mother” great provider and +provided, has its own deep rights in the realm of being. + +In summer and into fall you can see thousands of small fish schooling +in the shallow tidal edges of Cape Cod Bay, moving slowly until +approached, when those closest to you swing forward, or run, rush, +and circle as need be, the whole crowd sometimes escaping with a +simultaneous, sideward sweep. They are all spontaneity, life on the +run, endowed with limited attributes from the point of a “higher +animal” but of strict extravagance in form and action, born of ocean +waters. They suggest the incomparable, swimming out of range. + +There is something of this suggestion in many specific aspects of +animal, or even plant, life in the sea. In a sense their fascination +lies in what has not yet been discovered about them, but just as much, +from the average human point of view, in the way their actions are +those of the sea rather than the land to which we are accustomed. In +fact all of us are obliged to make surface discoveries a great deal +of the time, even with respect to what is around us, or even inside +us, like fishermen following the seasonal movement of fish, sometimes +predictable but often hidden and unreliable, or students who chase +after migratory birds in planes. So the sight of grunions wiggling in +California sands, depositing and fertilizing their eggs, bound to a +complex interrelationship of spring tides and the moon, still excites +our curiosity, being a phenomenon that is not fully understood, taking +place in a proximate but different world. + +Migrant fish, like the alewives, may return not only during the same +season each year but very close to the same day as a run of the year +before. Perhaps the cycles involving sea and climate average out very +accurately, but it is too complex a phenomenon to say that it goes like +clockwork. Tides are measurable but constantly changing in time and +amplitude. Environmental conditions in sea water are various and the +seas coordinate relationship to the atmosphere is an elaborate one. +Rhythmic response in an organism may be simple and spontaneous--like a +fucus, or rockweed, only ready to spawn after a period of exposure at +low tide--and it will have its causes, but the causes themselves are +greatly complex in nature. + +The sea’s discovery will not be made by factory ships that process +their huge catches of fish, by killer submarines chasing after whales, +or by mining equipment. We can physically affect its life with our +one-sided power, but it will remain protean and indifferent and we will +go on imagining our conquest of it. + +On this overdiscovered and overexploited earth the sea remains a +wilderness, a resource not of goods but of what is rich and wild. That +which we have been unable to use up, or harry to extinction, has +the power to renew. The sea is a positive mystery. I hear the surf’s +continual breathing in the distance; I see the stars that literally +cover the sky over the beach on a winter’s night like white animal +plankton in the spring waters; and I realize that I know no more about +them than I know about myself. The depths are still ahead, with the +fear and the temptation that the undiscovered arouses in us. + +All of us are drawn to the sea’s edge as to a fire. Its vast reaches +roll and heave in the light. There is an incalculable weight of waters +withheld just beyond us, a roaming kept in check. What an exalting +thing it is to see those waters dancing with silver castings from the +moon! Even in our careless, civilized state, drinking beer, watching +driftwood burn, or absorbing the sun and one another, in no way +obligated to the kind of cold suffering or exile which sea and seashore +have meant to men in the past, there is something in us that wants this +brilliance, this barren waste. + +The sheeted surfaces blown over by all winds rove on with their freight +of light during the day, constantly changing, sometimes black, purple, +and gray under pigeon-silver skies, with hazy, soft horizons, sometimes +silver scudding with gold, or blue, green, and white in all shades; and +always the tidal balance, the surf’s fall and drag at the sand’s edge, +whatever the season. + +During the autumn and winter months the cliffs hang their shadows over +the beach very early in the afternoon, cold darkness moving toward an +iridescent surf that reflects the last light of the sun. The sunset +shows curly salmon and fiery orange streaks on the other side of the +vast flat table that often runs with sea ducks at this time of year; +and then, singly, the stars begin to shoot up their spears and arrows, +alignments for eternal navigation. + + + + + IV + + A Rhythmic Shore + + +On the beach it might be said that there is no such thing as decline +and decay, although in a physical sense drastic change is obvious, +from year to year and even from minute to minute. In a northern forest +where the trees have been left to grow for many years, I have sensed +the presence of a great establishment, something silent and absolutely +personal, a society of trees with its own strong relationship to the +sun, to the roaring winter winds and snows, to dry years and wet, +using the earth-bound materials of growth, decay, and old age as +provisions for indefinite residence. These tree communities culminate +in “climax” formations, dominated by particular varieties of trees such +as maple and beech, or spruce and fir, to progress no further until +some great interference, such as a lumbering operation, or climatic +change--an increase or decrease in average temperatures over a period +of years--may start a community succession all over again. + +On the other hand, the beach and its cliffs that stand as buffers +against the sea never allow much in terms of residential time, except +to societies that can adapt themselves to living between the wet sand +grains, minute plants, and animals; and beach hoppers that burrow +in on the upper parts of the beach, or other crustaceans that sink +into the sand and out again as the waves go up and back, reacting +simultaneously. It is a terribly exacting place to live in. Life is +short. Disturbance is always to be expected, and the more so in the +course of a storm, which may change the whole physical character of the +beach itself. + +While I was walking on the beach I rented a small summer cottage in the +South Wellfleet area during the late autumn and early winter months, so +as to be able to spend nights as well as days by the sea, and I paid it +sporadic visits when I could. I remember one night when the sea showed +me just how candidly elemental and violent it could be. A northeast +storm had been making up all day. Off the Provincetown area, where the +waters are protected by Peaked Hill Bar--extending from Race Point to +High Head, some thousands of feet offshore and parallel to it--the sea +though gray and choppy, was relatively calm, while the wind blew hard. +I could see several fishing boats on the horizon. They were surrounded +by clouds of gulls. The sky was not totally overcast to begin with but +full of handsome blue-gray clouds that sailed across the air like great +round slates. Farther south the gray Atlantic foamed and rocked ahead, +and the green surf came in dashing with spume and spray, pouring an +angry froth on the shore. Finally the sky closed in completely. + +By nightfall, water driven by air filled earth and sky. A little ship’s +bell on the porch outside kept tinkling, and the wind rained blows on +the house. The walls thudded as if they were being struck by rocks. +Rain pelted the windows and the cold knifed in between the door and the +sill. The sea was putting on a profound and concentrated roar. I went +out and fought the wind as far as the top of the bank above the beach. +Beyond and below that it was almost impossible to stand. A mountainous +milky surf was seething, overturning, and piling in. Fury was riding +high. The wind belted houses, shrubs, and scanty trees. The beach +grasses were tossed, bent down, and released. Rain slashed and whipped +wildly everywhere and it seemed that all the natural power and danger +in the world had been let loose. When day broke majestic breakers were +booming and pounding down the beach as the north wind drove long lines +of spray across their heads. + +This is the kind of storm, not infrequent between September and +May, that flings down ladders reaching to the beach, undermines or +tears away the asphalt parking lots, throws wharf pilings and great +ocean-drifting timbers around as if they were matchsticks, and leaves +them strewn on the sands. It also tears away tremendous amounts of +material from the cliffs, as well as straightening or leveling out the +contours of the beach. The cliffs are eroded by storm action primarily, +not by the tides; but after a series of storms uncovers a part of the +beach, displacing great volumes of sand, sections of the cliff may come +down by gravity slippage, because they are not supported underneath, +and high tides may help the process. + +The extent of cliff erosion is very variable, and in so far as storms +are concerned, depends on their degree of intensity. Offshore bars and +shoals protect the beach from the action of the sea to some extent. +When they are breached during storms, the result is a greatly increased +cutting away of the beach sands and erosion of the cliffs. When bars +reform and build up again the beach slowly recovers its former volume, +though what the cliffs lose, of course, they cannot regain. + +The estimate given for the average rate of cliff erosion along the +Outer Cape is from two to four feet a year. I have heard of one family +who have had to move their cottage back three times during the past +forty years, a period in which the cliff, so it was estimated, may +have receded nearly 200 feet in that area; and their house lot was +not extensive enough for any more moves. Most residents or returned +visitors can remember some change in the topography of the cliffs over +the years. Not long after the end of World War II, when I came to live +on Cape Cod, there were still the remnants of the old twin lighthouses +above Nauset Light Beach, in the form of a curved brick base at the top +of the cliff. As time went by it was undermined, then started to slide +down, reached the base of the cliff to be completely buried by sand, +but was uncovered again some years afterward. In South Wellfleet water +pipes still project over the cliff, indicating the presence of summer +cottages some forty or fifty years ago. + +Changes in the beach are more immediate, and not likely to be so +irretrievable, but even there it is possible to see its fluctuations +over the years. There is a great rock off Nauset Light Beach that used +to stand high and clear at low tide some years ago, but it has been +undercut and filled around with sand and recently only its top was +showing. + +This is not a level, stable, protected kind of beach. It is steep, +full of long shoulders and curves, and fluctuates in outline not only +as a result of storms but with each tide and even with every wave, +making new bays, curves, shallow hills, and hollows; but the beach is +an interbalanced system. All its materials come from offshore or the +erosion of the cliffs. Wave action removes the cliff material, and +currents moving parallel to the shore take it both north and south: +there being a neutral point around Cahoon’s Hollow, halfway between +Highland Light and South Wellfleet, although its location is dependent +on the angle at which the waves come in along the shore. Half the cliff +material moves north to build up the hood at Provincetown, and half +moves south to be deposited along the sandspits from Nauset to Monomoy. + +A study made by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, under the +direction of John M. Zeigler, points out that the north and south ends +of the Cape terminate in fairly deep water, 205 feet off Race Point +and about fifty feet off Monomoy, and that: “It seems unlikely that +material is moved to the Outer Cape from deep water, either from north +and south, or by littoral drifting from any other part of the New +England coast. Drifted detritus would be trapped or obstructed many +times before it could reach the beaches of the Outer Cape.” + +During the course of the same study beach profiles were measured for +several years and it was found that the sands were constantly changing +in elevation, all the way from several tenths of a foot in one place +during a mere ten minutes to a ten-foot loss in another during a period +of two days. The average change per tide was about four tenths of a +foot and sometimes went up to a foot. + +The beach has a kind of rhythmic beat, up and down. If its changes were +translated into visual, continuous motion on a screen you might see it +dipping, rising, and undulating like the waves at sea. Turbulence and +change are not outside a frame of order. Loss is balanced by gain, so +that the sand which is taken from one part is added to another, and +though the relative volume of the beach is greatly reduced it may be +restored in a year or so to more or less its original size. + +Zeigler’s report, incidentally, makes the observation that the beaches +“become very steep and full in summer and are quite variable in winter, +spring and fall,” characteristics governed by the “sea state” during +those seasons. Sea state, if I understand the term correctly, refers to +the offshore characteristics of the sea surface, the height, length, +and steepness of its waves, and their velocity, all governed by the +wind in its many different phases. The waves that cut the beach away +during fall, winter, and early spring are characterized by their +steepness. On the other hand the summer waves that build up the beach, +although they may be the same height as cutting waves, are not steep, +the long swells that you see offshore in the warm months being typical +of this kind. + +From Nauset Coast Guard Beach to Highland Light the cliffs range +between 60 and 170 feet in height, and they are made of the stones, +boulders, sands, gravels, and clays of what geologists up to now have +called an “inter-lobate moraine,” meaning the mixed glacial material +built up as a ridge along the sides of two moving lobes of ice--in this +case two lateral moraines joined as one. + +A new study by Dr. John Zeigler, which accompanied his work on beach +erosion, puts forth another theory for this area which is that the +ridge was already there before the glacier came. It caused the +glacier to split into two lobes and the material it left behind was +fluvioglacial outwash, there being no real glacial till such as makes +up a moraine before Nauset. A carbon dating taken in this lower Cape +region puts its age at 20,700 years. + +The Upper Cape, from Orleans to the canal, is a true terminal moraine, +having material that was pushed ahead of the glacier and left behind +when it melted north. It is characterized by uneven hilly country full +of rocks and stones merging with a slanting sandy surface on the south +which formed the outwash plain. + +The cliffs may only be eroded in substantial amounts during storms, +but to a slight extent they are always eroding. In some sections, +especially during hot and dry weather, there falls a continuous stream +of pebbles and granular sand, made a rich reddish-brown by iron +compounds, looking in the strong light like a broad rain of precious +metals, treasure chests broken open. In other places sheets of fine +sand pour down in miniature Niagaras, or flow and fly ahead along the +cliffs before the wind, having the look under slanting winter sunlight +of light smoke from many fires. + +Chunks and fragments of clay are loosened by the weather from their +beds in the cliffs and are often washed by heavy rains so that a gray +liquid flows and fans out for some feet across the sands. Occasionally +boulders will loosen and tumble down. In fact small stones are +constantly falling, rolling erratically part way down the beach and +leaving their tracks behind them. The cliffs are the prime source of +the beach’s materials and a repository of the ages that preceded it. +They have a proud and vulnerable role in a context where everything is +subject to displacement and removal. + +Taking an average of three feet a year, the Outer Beach may have +required 1760 years to erode a mile in width, even though that is one +of those general figures which may mean nothing so far as detailed +geological history is concerned. In any case, not only cottages and +lighthouses have gone their way but also such topographical features as +marshes and ponds, with all the frogs, fish, and plants that belonged +to them. On the cliff tops and very close to the edge, there are many +glacial kettle holes, now dried up, but once full of water instead of +sand, so numerous in some areas as to make one uninterrupted dip and +rise after another. On the Nauset Coast Guard Beach, where the cliffs +have ended and are replaced by a long sandspit protecting the Nauset +marshes behind it, there is good evidence, jutting out on the beach, of +a former kettle hole, showing a fine dark sediment composed of organic +material which once lay under beds of peat. + +The cliffs’ glacial material, in whatever form they were left on Cape +Cod some 20,000 years ago, was part of the land’s erosion, of geology’s +rising and falling history, for countless years before that. Since +then it has been constantly exposed, loosened, easily eroded and ready +for the taking, by winds, tides, and waves, but all of it was changing +and movable in terms of the great stretches of earth time. Many of its +stones and boulders were being wind and waterworn, cracked by frost and +heat, long before they were plucked from hills and ledges, transported +and left by the glacier to give the Cape its present form. Now they are +being broken out and rolled down to be worn again. Like the tides, they +are part of a balance, a flow, and containment, that is prodigious in +its reach. + +The cliffs erode; the surf churns the sand; currents carry away the +sand and other cliff debris; storms cause the sea to break in across +sandspits and bars, so that they change constantly in shape and +position. There is a magnitude of effect involved at this meeting place +of sea and land. It is a magnitude that stretches between a sand grain +which may be less than a millimeter in diameter to storms whose force +makes man-made explosions of nuclear energy minuscule by comparison. + +Sand is perhaps the apex and symbol of the whole process in which the +existence of the beach is involved. It is moved and shifted grain by +grain in the displacement of its masses, lifted by waves, carried by +currents, and set down again. Sand in the evolution of the beach is not +a static material but an agent of dynamic energy, following out the +motion of water and air, itself their product. + +Sand grains, which are of great age, have been worn down from rock +and the mineral grains that make it up, to particles, largely of +quartz, with some feldspar, that are sufficiently durable not to be +reduced to the consistency of mud. The wind which moves the waves and +is the ultimate cause of all beach movement, also may have a more +important effect than water in abrasing and rounding out a sand grain. +The action of grain against grain is more abrasive in the air than +in water, which acts as a cushion. In any case a sand grain made of +quartz reaches a nearly irreducible size after a long period of time. +It might eventually be reduced to powder, but it is now protected by +the grains next to it because of its small size and the film of water +surrounding it. This water, held there by adsorption, is what makes it +possible for tiny animals like nematodes and copepods to exist in such +an environment. + +Pick up a handful of moist sand and it is heavy and relatively +cohesive. Through a hand lens you can see the grains fall off in pearly +clumps. On the other hand, dry sand is blown down the beach in its +separate grains like rice, and sorted on different levels according to +its weight and size. Each sparkling grain is an entity unto itself. It +is easily lifted and moved by the energy of waves and currents and at +the same time heavy enough in the mass to give beaches their malleable +stability. + +A sand grain is a product of earth, with beauty, quality, and dynamic +character, shining clear in eternal process. Sand has the strength +and resilience needed to hold up against the violent tonnage of the +waves, and at the same time to share in their employment. It is always +being remolded into new shapes by the art of wind and sea, shifting +restlessly, moving from age to age. What we call the inanimate not +only has its weights and measures but also a wonderful proportion with +relation to the forces that send it on. It has a going out that is as +rhythmic in its way and as full of viable light as the migration of +organic lives. + + + + + V + + Dune Country + + +Sand dunes, as distinct from sandspits, or the banks at the head of +the beach, are found in a few restricted areas on the Cape, but their +two primary locations are the Provincetown hook and at Sandy Neck +in Barnstable, on the Bay side. Inland of the beach, far enough not +to be exposed to the constant wash of the tides or to flooding seas +during storms, the dunes have forms and motions of their own. They +were originally produced by the wind, and it is the wind that reshapes +them, blows over their shoulders and down their slopes, making mounds +and ripples on their surfaces, and also undoes them and makes new ones +again. + +The Provincetown dunes, which I had passed by on my June hike down +the beach, represent an exposed region of several miles in extent, +uninhabited for the most part except for a few gray beach houses +perched on the dunes overlooking the sea. They are continually being +added to by sand which the dry northwest wind picks up along the shore +and blows inland. Because of its dryness, this wind also has the +greatest effect in moving the dunes. Damper winds causing moisture on +grains of sand, make them more resistant to being moved. + +Much of the region is held down by low vegetation. Its sandy reaches +are patched everywhere by Hudsonia, or beach heather, pitch pines kept +down almost flat on the ground by wind and salt spray, and its slopes +and hummocks kept intact by beach grass; but in other areas, and they +are extensive, the dunes have broken loose and roam like the waves of +the open ocean, with great crests and long, deep troughs. They look as +if they should have a slow, massive momentum of their own, but they are +moved by the wind, migrating in a west to east direction at the rate +of some ten to fifteen feet a year, creating a considerable problem +at the point where they skirt the highway across from the town of +Provincetown. On the far end of Pilgrim Lake high dunes loom over the +highway and are continually drifting down on to it, hardly deterred by +snow fences and the planting of beach grass, so that the sand has to be +cleared off frequently. + +[Illustration] + +It is a young country, even compared with the rest of the Cape, which, +in geologic terms at least, is by no means an ancient land. It is +postglacial and is made of material brought along the shore and added +to a reef of glacial debris. It begins where the glacial material of +the lower Cape ends, easily seen where the cliff at “High Head” breaks +off above Pilgrim Lake, and then it stretches and curves out very close +to sea level. Samples of material taken in the area showed a carbon +dating of 5000 years, comparatively recent times. Also there seems to +be good reason for believing that much of the dune country was broken +free and set to wandering by the hand of man. + +Between the dunes and Provincetown there are a number of ponds, marshy +areas, and woodlands, including some good-sized stands of beech and +oak. These woods must have been considerably more extensive at one +time. In the dunes that now hang over them there are remnants, tree +trunks, and stubs protruding through the sand; and there is at least +one part of the dunes that seems to show evidence of a wood fire that +took up a big area, though when it occurred is not clear to me. + +Thoreau wrote about the dead stubs of submerged forests projecting +above the surface of the sand in the “desert,” as he called it, and +of numerous little pools in the sand filled with fresh water “... all +that was left, probably of a pond or swamp.” He may have exaggerated +these pools as an indication of former ponds or marshland. They are +located a little above the water level which extends everywhere under +the dunes, and so are likely to be found at the bottom of the dune +troughs, or hollows between the dunes. Some of these pools, or fairly +long and narrow stretches of shallow water, may stay in much the same +place over a long period of time if the levels where they are located +are at least partially held down by vegetation. They are filled up by +rain water during fall and spring and then dry out during the summer +months, but where the dunes migrate before the wind, they also travel +behind one dune and before the next; and they are seldom deep enough to +develop typical swamp vegetation. + +Thoreau tramped the area in 1849, and two hundred years earlier the +dune area on the town side of the “Hook” and possibly further must +have been much more circumscribed and held back. The early inhabitants +cut down all the trees they could find, for firewood; “try works” for +melting whale blubber; boats, houses, and salt works (in the days when +salt was produced by boiling sea water instead of the later refinement +of using solar heat to evaporate it). + +Blowing sand became a threat to Provincetown and its harbor early in +its history. In his _Cape Cod; its people and their history_, Henry +Kittredge describes the war declared by the people of the town against +almost every stick, living or dead, that surrounded them. + +“When the Mayflower band arrived,” he writes, “the sand hills to the +north were for the most part held stationary by trees and shrubs. But +from the earliest times the inhabitants, following the example of +visiting fishermen, fell upon the trees until the sand lay bare, a prey +to the four winds of heaven. The captains of fishing schooners were +allowed to take sand ballast from these hills, and not content with +this, the citizens turned their cattle loose to graze on what clumps of +vegetation still struggled for existence on the denuded hills, with the +result that the grass was demolished as fast as it grew. The sand was +free to blow down upon the unprotected village with every northwester, +threatening even to bury the houses.” + + The danger attracted the attention of the Colonial Government as + early as 1714, when an act was passed to preserve the trees. In + 1727, Provincetown was incorporated, and a dozen years later another + act forbade the pasturing of cattle on the sand hills. The Court + might as well have forbidden the winds to blow or the sun to shine. + Provincetowners cared nothing for laws, and continued to cut wood and + turn cattle loose for the next hundred years; in short, until the + danger, instead of threatening, actually arrived. The sand buried + a house or two, and was advancing toward the town, salt works, and + harbor at the rate of fifty rods a year along a four-and-a-half-mile + front. In 1825, another commission was sent to study the situation + and suggest remedies. This time they found the citizens so frightened + by the marching sand that they were ready at last to obey the laws. + They planted beach grass on the barren dunes, kept their cattle in the + pound, and stopped cutting down young pine trees. Thus was the sand + anchored and the town saved. + +Pilgrim Lake is what is left of East Harbor, an extension of the main +harbor of Provincetown that ended in marshes separated by a narrow +strip of beach on the outer shore. The sea was a constant threat to +this barrier and the people of Provincetown were afraid that it would +eventually break through and start sending tons of sand into their +valuable harbor, eventually making it unusable. A dike, 1400 feet +long and seventy-five feet wide was finally completed in 1869, cutting +across the mouth of East Harbor at the entrance to Provincetown Harbor, +so that both houses and fishing industry were no longer threatened with +burial; but the dunes, though held in some control, have continued to +blow. + +There is a small hill called Mt. Gilboa on one side of the highway at +Provincetown, facing another Biblical peak called Mt. Ararat on the +other, and if you climb it you can overlook the harbor and the roofs +of the town, as well as the dunes and sea in the other direction. +(Provincetown, incidentally, consists of a belt of houses narrowly +strung along the inner shore with its streets directly oriented toward +the harbor, appropriate to a people whose trade and thoughts were +toward the sea. This is also true of the houses, which were built +longitudinally, parallel to the streets.) In the fall, clam diggers +bend down over dark flats at low tide between stretching fingers of +water. Dories are stranded in the mud, or move gently on low water. +Beyond them are the curving, stockadelike enclosures of the fish weirs, +and draggers move in to the mouth of the harbor out of the bay. The +sunlight fires the sandy faces of the long, low cliffs that extend down +the inner shore of the Cape. + +The town, which is so thick and crowded with cars during the summer +months, a host to the cities, teeming with talk and color, a variety +of human shapes, sizes, and exclamations, so reclaimed that you can +hardly conceive of its austere past, becomes diminished again to a mere +cluster of houses, a tenuous edge on water and sand. On the far-going +Atlantic side, the dunes billow and toss. The Ararats are everywhere, +peaks, crowns, domes held down by yellow beach grass on the mounds and +hillocks from which the slopes dive down. + +As the world’s dunes go, these may not be of major size and extent. On +the other hand they have been measured at heights between sixty and +eighty feet, and at times dune ridges may have reached elevations up +to 100 feet. Also, their scale is such, leading from one open face to +another, that human figures climbing a steep side across an intervening +slope of no great distance seem tiny. The walls keep looming up and +the valleys dip between, so that the whole landscape is full of a wide +motion. + +In all this bare largesse of sand, the texture is clean and clear. +Shadows move over it like loving hands. The wind’s touch in turn has +made grooves, grains, and ribs on the surface. In some areas the black +mineral magnetite joins with garnet to make blackish-purple ripples +in the sand, or irregular masses, or little brushstroke feathers and +clouds. Everything shows clearly, from human footprints and the long +ruts made by beach buggies, to mice or rabbit tracks. And I suppose +that in the summer--if you pounce in time--you can see insects leaving +their traces, like dune grasshoppers, colored and grained like sand, +or a spider that buries down in the sand, thus avoiding extreme +temperatures; or even a toad. I once found a Fowler’s toad quite far +out on the beach where it must have wandered away from the dunes. + +[Illustration] + +A stick that drops down from one of those shrubs so besieged by wind +and sand waggles down a dune making a fine tracery, or what looks like +a stamping of birds when it is lodged in one place and blown back and +forth. An oak leaf merely blown for a slight distance down the sand +makes a track, with all its lobe ends imprinted like a long tassel or +thin strands of separate strings. Except for the beach-buggy tracks, +that follow one route fairly consistently, and may be visible for +months at a time, and the beach grasses, continually renewing their +precise circles on the sand, most of these tracks soon disappear. +There is a constant moving of sand particles, a sweeping over by the +wind. The open dunes are trackless areas where tracks take on great +significance. + +During winter days when the northwest wind blows with fury along the +exposed shores of the Cape, it may be too uncomfortable to stay in +the dunes for any length of time. You gasp in the polar air and hide +your face from the stinging sand. Each sand grain is lifted and sent +with the speed of a projectile along the surface of the dunes. Given a +little shelter from which to watch you could see the dunes change shape +in an afternoon, or an hour. It is on days like this that they migrate +like waves, with long slopes on their upwind sides, steep ones on their +lee. + +On their bright and stable days, the long dune shoulders at the top of +each rise tilt you up, body and vision, into the dizzy heights of a +sky graded from cobalt to indigo, the way the scale of things in the +landscape goes from sand grains to rocking seas without distraction. +The dunes almost seem to ask for a long-distance running from both men +and clouds. They are a place of flying, falling, and tumbling, shaping +the motion of what comes to them, asking for an approach that soars. + +Also, they have their secrets, their ground-level associations. In +October the beach-grass heads are loaded with yellow seeds. Where +the plants are clumped together, providing protection from the wind, +nests of seed gather on the leeward side, visited by birds that leave +many little tracks and sometimes a feather or two. Mice also leave +their dimpled trails, circling around the beach grass, traveling +across bare sand for short distances before they disappear. There is +a special delicacy in the visits of birds and mice. I had the fancy, +following these small trails, of watching mice under the moon, with all +their scuttling, nibbling, and investigating, so that some of their +excitement, their fidgety life dance might be translated for me. I even +thought it might help bring me down from a world too heavy with size to +a neater reality. + +Startled by a little crash of twigs and leaves, I saw a rabbit darting +up a dune slope. It bobbed to the top and stayed motionless for a few +seconds in a bayberry thicket until I followed it to find what might +be the meeting place of a whole tribe of rabbits, if I could judge by +the amount of tracks and pellets of dung there were, all on the rim of +a small bowl held together by the bayberries with a small scrub oak +coming up from its base. These semiprotected hollows are quite typical +of the dunes. There are also small woods of pitch pines, thickly +carpeted with needles, where the tree roots can get some moisture +at the bottom of a valley between the dunes. Scrub-sized oak, pine, +sometimes bayberry, beach plum, or wild cherry, hold down many hollows, +with the help of beach grass on the shoulders around them. + +The beach grass has had much deserved honor heaped upon it, in the +proportion that it is able to live with the tons of sand that are +also heaped upon it. It is perfectly adapted to being covered over by +sand since it sends up stems which in turn root themselves, and then +grows on, letting the old roots die. As a sand hill builds up, the +beach grass is able to maintain itself in this fashion without being +buried and to hold down the sand with a network of roots and stalks. +It stabilizes such hills until the point where the wind may sweep +so constantly around them as to expose them and cut away the sand, +leaving the grass in splendid isolation with its outer roots hanging in +mid-air. So beach grass and sand have a special collaboration which man +does his best to encourage, especially after he has made rescue work +necessary. + +The sand masses have great weight and volume and are stable in +themselves but it is their surfaces that flow and shift with the wind, +so that the whole region is remolded over periods of time. It is +fascinating to sit in a valley between the dunes and reconstruct their +curves, seeing how the sand has been swept down one side and blown up +another, sent over a hill to make a new one on the other side, held for +a long time and then broken loose to change its residence, motion, and +stability joining to make those noble forms. + +The dunes may threaten man’s house, or road, or wood lot in immediate +terms, but in themselves they are like distant monuments dedicated +to natural force, perfect, calm, threatening or joining all that +which lies ahead of them with equanimity. Time and its lapses seem +immaterial, more so than the wind that shifts them. Now, or in years +to come, a migrating dune will kill off a tree or a shrub and what +does it matter? Can I care about what happens to one of a thousand +scrub pines? I think not; but perhaps I can care about the event in the +whole sequence of growth, change, and reshaping. Slow and statuesque, +the dunes under the great air are another balance in process, like the +beach beyond them. + +I think of some of the trees in the dunes and their struggle with the +winds and the encroaching sands, and I am unable to shed tears over +something that is unable to cry, but sometimes the word desperation +comes to me, when I see evidence of their long efforts to hold on. You +will see a dying cherry tree that has sent shoot after shoot, trunk +after trunk, all over the side of a dune or sand hill that is being +worn away, and they are full of the contortions of struggle--arrested, +like the statue of Laocoön and his sons wrestling with the snakes, +but real enough. Or another hummock or small dune, where a beach plum +or bayberry may not have enough purchase left, has a mass of twisted +branches and twigs strewn down its sides, the wreckage of a genuine +defeat. + +On the north edge of Provincetown the migrant dunes skirt the woods +and thickets on their borders like icebergs, clean-rounded, immense +shoulders of satiny sand slipping by trees: shad, bayberry, beach plum, +red maple, oak, or pine. Because of the stable nature of sand, except +when it is blown, they stay where they are, great suspended masses, +their progress only measured at intervals, leaving evidence of trees +that are buried, or about to be buried, behind them. + +I am indebted to Dr. Loren C. Petry for pointing out to me that some +trees are able to grow in the same way as beach grass, while they are +being covered with sand. Pines will die when they are only partially +buried, but this is not true, for example, of cottonwoods whose +branches send down roots soon after they are buried, and so maintain +their water and mineral supply. He has seen fifty-foot specimens of +this tree--along the southeast side of Lake Michigan--of which some +forty feet were buried, with the remaining ten feet growing vigorously. + +The trees in the wooded areas bordering the dunes, particularly the +pines, look as if they were covered with a soft whitish powder. It +is caused by the very fine sand grains dusted over their leaves and +needles by the wind, and during the winter this can be seen for miles +down the Cape, well south of High Head. + +Almost all the trees here have a temporary existence, holding on as +well as they can, fighting for light, food, and moisture. Even if +there used to be more woodland than there is now--and the evidence is +good--there is nothing about this narrow area, stretching into the sea, +made by the sea in collaboration with the wind, that looks settled. The +word stabilized can be applied to a dune and in a sense to anything +that remains rooted, anchored, or in place for a certain length of +time, but in this case the word balance might be better. Motion, either +latent or in view, is in equilibrium throughout this rare place, half +desert, occasionally wooded, full of gardenlike patches of low growth +standing out in their variety of color and shade, seeming to move like +the clouds. There are shadows everywhere, made by low twigs, needles, +or grasses, the slightest thing lying across the sand, in sketchy +rhythmic patterns tossed by the wind, while the greater shadows made by +the high dune outlines are shifting steadily with the time of day. + +Aside from mice, rabbits, skunks, toads, insects, and the indigenous +plants, this seems a place for nomads, and the birds that are free to +forage, like a dark pigeon hawk that swoops across on its hunt for +prey, or an occasional marsh hawk, breast feathers gleaming in the +sunlight, its shadow passing across a dune wall. Little flocks of birds +burst here and there through the thickets, like chickadees, myrtle +warblers, or juncos that move around on the ground pecking for seed. In +their fall migration many of the juncos, or “snowbirds,” reach Cape Cod +by a long, over-the-water route, and flocks that arrive on the Outer +Beach begin to move up into the dunes in a search for fresh water, +perennial pilgrims. + +I sat on the top of a high dune one afternoon and watched a beach buggy +swaying and swinging up in my direction along a track that led from the +shore. It droned up and careened by me, plowing and slipping through +the sands, and away down a long slope it went on the dunes’ free forms, +cutting across the shadows that were spearheading toward the sea. Then +I heard children’s voices in the distance coming over quite clear +and shrill, falling off at intervals before the wind. The slopes and +valleys stretched with pure travel in between. It was the kind of place +where all views and associations keep on, across a shifting range. It +lacked fixed ways, decided roads. Only packed in by the open ocean and +the long reaches of time, the roving dunes made a continually majestic +statement which no amount of cans, broken glass, or human footprints +could erase. + +Off on the end, the edge, past the cities and the suburbs, the fixed +house lots, the fields, and plains that make a patchwork of an entire +nation, here is a country let go, barren, down to an essential minimum, +but tossing and flowing with its own momentum in an envious proximity +to the sea. It is the first and last land in America. + + + + + VI + + A Change in History + + +The history of Cape Cod is fairly well known. I say fairly well because +I do not see how it is possible to recapture the deep complexities of +what was present and now is past, although there is enough past left +in us to provide great confusion about the times we have to face. +Many tourists run after “charm” or what is “quaint,” terms which are +slight enough to admit that they have very little to do with the dark +realities of three centuries. Now we come and go in great bounds, from +great distances. Motion and change make our constancies. We are in no +need of staying put. We are attracted by the starlight in the heavens +we have created for ourselves. We look on the earth’s great flowing +beauties with an inclined eye. For all its “conquest of nature,” +perhaps because of it, our civilization has a tenuous hold on the +waters and lands it occupies. We are in danger of being overlords, not +obligated to what we rule. + +We do not “visit” in the old sense of the word, stopping in for fish +chowder, or rum or a cup of tea, nor are we customarily invited in +because we are tired and out of our way. There is no time for that, and +besides there are too many of us. + +The new human plantings do not fit the old outlines. Cape Cod is now +subject to a population spreading out as a result of the tremendous +growth of cities and towns. It is predicted that the number of winter +residents will increase by forty or fifty thousand in the next twenty +years, and the summer visitors to the Great Beach may pass all bounds +eventually. As the speed of transition has been increased between one +era and another so has our individual speed, in arriving and departing. +When you buy a piece of land on the Cape you do it as an investment, +as a kind of fluid security, not for its own sake or something too +priceless to let go. There are always other places to move to. Each man +used to be his own nomad, now nomadism is supplied to all of us by the +mechanics and riches of society. During the tourist season the average +length of visit per person has been estimated at three days, enough +time to sense the breadth of things if not the circumstances. + +If we are all to be itinerants, wasting and leaving, or suburbanites, +Cape Cod will have a hard time keeping what open beauties it still +displays, even with the National Park, which has saved a great deal of +it from the seemingly unalterable army of bulldozers in the nick of +time. + +The record, written all over the Cape in the form of cut-over woodland +and wasted topsoil, does not say much for human foresight at any time, +with or without the bulldozers. In that respect we have not changed, +though we are not as dependent on the locality we live in as we used to +be. Food and resources come from afar. Still, all places, regardless of +the human adventure, have their underlying tides, their own measured +and perhaps measureless pace, and they shade their inhabitants in +subtle ways. We continue to be affected by what we can neither +transform nor avoid. No amount of dry ice stops the hurricane. We have +no barriers to keep off the arctic air. So those of us who live here +still complain helplessly about each other or the weather, while ghosts +of penury and puritanism still haunt the local houses. + +The area in which I stayed for that brief nomadic period of my own, was +filled with cottages, on slopes ending on the cliff above the beach, a +majority unoccupied but with a house here and there showing a little +more substance to it, the evidence of a year-round resident. With some +exceptions, they were bare in appearance and devoid of individuality. +No uncommon effort had been made to give them much distinction. In +the winter and fall they lost whatever color by human association +they might have had during the summer. Some of them were flat-roofed, +pastel-painted little boxes without even the virtue of exposed wood, +and since they were not in Florida they could not borrow any youth +from the sunshine. Their spirit was old before they were built, and in +that respect indigenous to the seashore. The bare coast and the gray +waters seemed to hold them in contempt, or at least indifference, and +they became as gray themselves. They are due credit for their lack of +pretension, whether planned or not. They did not take up the landscape +with improvements and cultivation. They sat on their own little plots +of sandy ground, with a few pitch pines, Hudsonia and scrub oak, +joining the general economy of the landscape, no blowing leaves and +limbs above them, no spreading lawns around. Whoever might live in +them after the mild, money-making season could be gripped by the real +weather without interference. + +Our age may give the lie to all those who are interested in antiques, +even if there are any old ones left. Perhaps there is no alternative if +we have to get to the moon or bust. Will there ever be such a thing as +an antique rocket? But there is still a flow of age, a distant sense of +things that it is possible to find, hanging like mist over an inlet, +booming like the sea over the far side of a hill. + +You can still walk the Old King’s Highway in some areas, a single-track +road where it is easy to imagine a horse and wagon or a stage, during +the years when it took two days to get to Boston and the sea route was +the preferred one. Even with the jet planes droning overhead and the +cars grinding gears in the distance and the about-to-break sound of +the future in the sky somewhere ahead, it is as ancient and distinct as +the outline of an oak tree. Just its narrowness is enough. I spent half +one afternoon trying to find it in one part of its extent, and at last +there it was, quite clearly, just the right size for the eighteenth +century, with narrow ruts in sandy ground, lowered, indented, washed +out in some places, grown over in others, but a ghost with definition. + +In the Wellfleet and Truro areas you can still see how the houses were +located here and there along the old highway, or dotted around in +sheltered hollows back of the beach. In the wintertime you are very +likely to meet no one, since there are comparatively few year-round +residents. Once the place was full of local need, local talk, or +tragedy. What wrecks now occur along the treacherous offshore bars can +usually be taken care of by men of the Coast Guard who can get to the +area quickly in a jeep and sound the alarm by phone. When there was +no radar for ships, hardly any means for wide and quick communication +with authorities on land, localities were responsible for the wrecks +that might occur off their own shore. There were volunteer lifeboat +crews composed of men from neighboring houses, with a boat kept ready +in a hollow above the beach, ready to be launched out to the rescue, in +terrible seas that were a common part of existence. + +In the early part of the nineteenth century Cape Cod towns had between +three and four hundred sailing ships between them and a majority of +their men went out to sea. In a great storm occurring in October of +1841 the town of Truro lost fifty-seven men, being already burdened +with a large population of widows, and on the day after the storm +nearly a hundred bodies were recovered along the Cape Cod shores. Most +of them were caught while they were fishing on George’s Banks or were +making a desperate trial of returning home, with a northeast gale +screaming and the sea sweeping their decks. + +The bars off the Outer Beach from Peaked Hill to Monomoy have been +responsible for an incredible number of shipwrecks in the past, and +taking the measure of the storms that strike the coast, it is hard to +see how there could have been as many survivors as there were, even +with the gallantry and local experience of the amateur lifesavers. Many +ships ran aground too far offshore to be reached, and were pounded to +pieces. The death-dealing power of the offshore sea in these storms +seems unparalleled. The surf has the turmoil and roar of an avalanche. +It chews and churns at the cliffs taking great volumes of material away +so that it seethes with foam and sand, the masses of teeming waters +plunging in, heaving and conflicting, an amalgam of unapproachable +violence. + +Many of the lights that welcomed sailors, or warned them off, are now +gone from the headlands and from houses along the shore that no longer +have to worry about their men any more than they have to worry about +themselves. The mackerel fleets are no longer thick on the horizon. +The wharves are gone that used to take in the mackerel at Wellfleet +on the Bay side. No one eats salt mackerel any more that I know of. I +have a friend who spent his boyhood in New York State who was given +salt mackerel to eat on Sunday mornings. It had been soaked in milk +overnight, having been taken out of a “kentle,” which was a small +wooden keg, the top wider than the base, about a quarter of a barrel +in size. His observation was that it was much too salty a dish for his +taste. + +The talkers at the livery stable, the central store, or the barbershop +are also gone, as well as the sea captains who retired at the age of +forty-five or fifty to become big men in their communities. The horses, +truck gardens, fish heads, rum and rum runners are gone too, and what +old men still whittle boats for the tourists on the beach? The ancient +marvels who used to gather Cape Cod moss on their backs, telling +hilarious stories about chicken stealing, cow “dressing” (manure), +boundary disputes, occasional romantic murders, and hard days at sea no +longer seem to be available for reference. What a lot of solid objects +seem to have gone from the world! + +Perhaps I have left history behind too soon, saying, in effect: “Choose +what age you like. You may find yourself in another.” Perhaps it is no +fault of mine. + +During my autumn and winter walks I did find a lasting pleasure in +recognizing old things, reconstructing neighborliness, even from a +distance, learning to see the silence--the growth and shape of things, +the riches of “slow time.” The ponds especially, in the Wellfleet and +South Truro regions, protected by the woods around them and the land +leading up to the cliffs above the beach, were clear and deep and +seemed to reflect quiet habitation over a long time. The water lapped +on sandy shores in the sweet, airy winter stillness, broken by the +loud, bright braying of blue jays. Coon tracks were sharply etched on +the shallow margins where they had gone fishing for fresh-water mussels +that left meandering traces on the pond bottom. On the far ends in the +shadows there were occasional ducks, like blue-winged teal, mallards, +or scaups. + +At Gull Pond in Wellfleet one January day there were scarfs of ice +along the shore, and out in the center herring gulls flew up and +settled down on open water where a light cold wind broke across the +surface. Wavelets were continually pushing and jostling broken ice so +that it made a high singing, almost bell-like sound. + +Around these ponds were crows, evidence of owls, wintergreen leaves +to taste, and wind whisking through the pines, or oaks still carrying +dead leaves. I heard the odd little hornlike note of a nuthatch as it +was rounding the scaly plated trunk of a pitch pine. Pale light moved +through the woods and across the hollows. Silvery trees bordered gentle +mossy roads, their tracks loaded with fallen leaves. It was all in a +special Cape proportion, colored silver and gray, like the Atlantic, +or the herring gulls, the clouds and the sky, or an old house that +suddenly showed up in true style and balance, not to be imitated by any +century but its own. + +Then I walked out to see the great green breakers roaming in, and to +hear their thunderous bone and gut fall across the length of the beach. +The sound held and it took away, a monumental assurance of power past +all the roughness and directness of the old life, its quiet suspension +in the present, and the wrenching of the not-yet born. + +What you have to face after all, in this low wooded land, in the +continual dip and rise of its contours, is consummate change, the way +the beach itself, or the dunes are changing, keeping a general state +for a minute, or even a lifetime, but quite beyond catching. Its +history is water. + +Water created it in the first place. When the last enormous glacier +melted back leaving its indiscriminate load of rubble out in the +sea, it had also created a profusion of holes, basins, gullies, the +“kettles” which are now dry or semidry hollows, bogs, or still holding +water as ponds and lakes, and valleys, broad and narrow runs with +outlets to the sea. At one time Cape Cod must have been streaming with +water like a whale’s back when it rises to the surface. Now many of +the original streams, rivers, and ponds are wholly or in part dried +out, but without too much imagination you can fill the landscape with +water all over again. Scientific exactitude, geologic reconstruction, +make it possible to confirm your sense of the place as full of remnant +and abiding fluidity. There is hardly a piece of land on the entire +peninsula that does not suggest this. + +It is water thousands of years behind, water inseparable from the +motions of the future, a power roaring in and destroying, pushing, +grinding, ebbing back. It is water in the rain; water in the deep, +still ponds; water in the underground darkness; in the gentle seaward +running streams; in the tidal estuaries and marshes lowering or +flooding over; as sleet; or snow; in icy gales full of the howling +emptiness of the winter sea, when the cold metal of the wind pounds +on your back and cuts at your face, as it sweeps down the semifrozen +sands of the beach where the green and white surf fumes in, rolling and +churning with impersonal passion. + +Even now the history of Cape Cod is a history of enduring weather, of +the same exposures. Only our terms are not the same. Some years ago I +stood on the high hills of North Truro late one afternoon, watching the +suns red path shining and moving across the wide waters of the bay, +thinking of sea surfaces moving over the round earth to its poles, +and the poverty of the winter world around me, stripped to ultimates, +everywhere exposed, and exposed to everything. The round hills were so +bare that the little separate houses in the distance, down in hollows +or perched on the long slopes, seemed to shiver. They glittered like +so many frost flakes in the air. I had just come from Provincetown and +seen a dragger unloading its fish, and the fishermen cutting them up +with red, raw-meat hands. The wind was shipping up the water. The gulls +were crying over the racing, lathered shore. + +It came to me that what had brought me here had not so much to do with +a feeling for the old Cape, with its churches in their simple New +England grace, or clam-digging, beach-combing, old wrecks, driftwood, +or fish weirs, real as it was in me, but a great new outwardness, a +universal human event. Each man undergoes a series of changes during +his lifetime in a sequence of experience that corresponds to that of +the world. He has in him the revolutions, the escapes from holocaust, +the interspaces of peace, the fact of war, the anxieties, the cry +that his being be fulfilled, the never-ending human examination and +measuring of things. So I found myself to be “way out,” a Cape Cod +term anteceding the Beat Generation, and meaning far from your home +base, with very few old promises behind to sustain me. I had to come to +terms with an age without age, a locality without location, perhaps a +divinity in fires of no precedent or name. Above all I was required to +change, to face in new directions. + + * * * * * + +The gulls floated in the cold air with customary ease. On my way home I +saw a great blue heron flying over a marsh and inlet, its broad wings +spread out like a cloak, long legs stretched straight behind it, with +feet curled up stiffly, head and neck crooked back. Then it landed +in shallow water. Its wings folded and it stood straight up, with a +surprising, statuesque height and gaze, the long neck and head above +a flock of ducks that were swimming and feeding near by, assuming +the kind of composure special to a race of herons that would serve +indefinitely. The wind ruffled the water, swept over reeds and curving +grasses, sending the last light of day roving in splendid colors over +the entire marsh. + +All the measured lights and shadows of day and night, the tides of the +sea and the tides of the season, the response and joint association of +all life’s components in that place stayed much the same as they had +ever been, in spite of the way we hurled in our roads and relocated +ourselves without rest. Its natural order was still there for old +expectation to seize upon; though in terms of accumulated knowledge +and wants it was more complex than it had ever been, and would have to +endure a human association that was itself on the waters of change, +holding hard to the mechanics of its coming. Cape Cod had suddenly lost +a slow, accumulative history, perhaps in a matter of twenty years, +and would be treated like the rest of the world--as it happened, as +it would come about under human auspices. Our problem, one of many, +might be this: how could we reconcile universal commitment with the +inviolable nature of a single place? + + + + + VII + + Barren Grounds + + +The oceanic landscape reaches across the round earth, over a curved +horizon, and that may be one reason why men keep returning to it. The +sea attracts the experience of distance. There is still some vicarious +adventure to standing on a cliff, breathing the far-ranging air and +imagining ships hidden by mists on the horizon, or unknown lands beyond +that, or even remembering lands once visited. Over there is where the +great passages of history have gone by. + +As recently as fifty or sixty years ago, man and sea were involved in a +more personal alliance on Cape Cod, and its seamen once voyaged around +the world. At the same time there were some local inhabitants who +considered it a major expedition to go from one side of the Cape to the +other. The fishing, shipbuilding, and voyages to foreign lands that was +more characteristic of the Cape before the Civil War than after it gave +what might have been a too narrow community, concentrated only on its +own affairs, a healthy connection with the rest of the world. + +Since the Second World War Cape Cod has been filled with relative +outsiders, many of whom have been transported, not necessarily through +any fault or wish of their own, to stations around the globe. A place +that once went out for its sustenance now waits for the world to come +to it. + +One of the few people I met during my off-season walks on the beach +turned out to be a man who had retired from the city. The open air may +have been conducive to revelation, because he told me a great deal +about his life during the ten or fifteen minutes I talked to him. +It turned out that the place where we stood had some significance +in his own history. He looked out to sea from the edge of the cliff +and pointed out over the water to show me the general region where +transports used to gather during the First World War on their way +overseas. He had been on a Navy escort vessel. + +“This country,” said he, “is waste,” as he talked about war, small +business, rough competition, lumbering, and all the size and +circumstances of the men and societies he had met and fought and +endured. Through a life-long experience of waste--or waste space--and +all his tired compliance with authority and anger against it, he had +saved room in him for voyages. He told me that he had come to live near +the sea so that he could walk along the cliffs and the beach whenever +he wanted to, and to look out, I guess, when he wanted to with a +relatively free command view of destiny. + +After I left him I met another reminder of war, spread out for several +miles along the tops of the cliffs. It is now within the boundaries of +the National Seashore Park, and one day, when the beach grass takes +hold of its denuded areas, it will no longer be recognizable as a +military reservation, but when I first walked through it Camp Wellfleet +had just been formally disbanded. Although it was completely deserted, +its buildings and some of its installations were still intact. It had +been an antiaircraft post, and not of primary importance to a coast +which was not likely to be attacked, but I have heard local residents +speak of the constant, annoying sound of practice firing, which made +the walls tremble and the dishes fall off the shelves, and for several +years after the war ended fishermen used to protest that their boats +were in the line of fire. + +The camp was in what geologists call the Wellfleet Plain. It was on +these bare levels above the beach that Guglielmo Marconi built his +wireless station and sent out the first transatlantic message in +January of 1903. The year before, he had built an elaborate structure +with twenty masts, and this had blown down in a heavy onshore wind. +The successful message, which took the form of an exchange between +Theodore Roosevelt and King Edward VII of Great Britain, was sent from +only four masts, which had more stability in Cape Cod weather. It is +typical of the Outer Beach that although Marconi transmitted waves that +crossed the world, the sea has had the last word. On the day I walked +through nearly sixty years later there was nothing left of what he had +constructed but a few fallen bricks on the face of the cliff. + +Marconi’s towers were long gone, but the Camp Wellfleet lookout towers +and firing range were still more or less intact, and the place only +lacked occupation to make it come alive again. The public had been kept +out of the area for many years, but now I could walk in on a winter’s +afternoon and not meet a soul. I passed a sign saying: MILITARY +RESERVATION NO TRESPASSING, not without vague qualms, and memories of +my own months in an Army camp, half-expecting the sound of “Halt!” to +ring out. + +“Yessir. Yessir.” I said to myself, starting to prepare my excuses to +some ghost of past authority. + +There was no sound but the surf and a pelting rain, that fell on bare +gravelly ground seared everywhere with tire tracks. Bareness was +something the Army brought to all its posts, so that a bunch of grass +was considered unnecessary, or tended for dear life. The Army city, +once a humming, purposeful anonymity, was now completely silent and +alone, but for me it still kept some of the power of its restrictions, +arousing old apprehensions--that tightening of the stomach at facing +some new unknown. The bare white barracks were still intact, and +the power lines. There were signs indicating underground cables, or +latrines. There were off-limits signs on empty streets. + +I stood in the rain and remembered that essential order, with its +own enormous kind of waste and consumption, and the feelings of +frustration and boredom it produced in me. I remembered the routine, +the rote-mindedness which often passed for efficiency, the utter +helplessness that many soldiers felt during wartime, and were obliged +to accept, about being part of something huge, anonymous, even +reckless and uncalculated, an ignorance of which they themselves were +ignorant and to which they had not been invited. I also remembered the +unassuming friendships you could make in the Army, the directness with +which men accepted each other. + +A sparrow hawk flew over. I noticed deer tracks on the ground. They +were interruptions of a nature that did not concern me very much as +a draftee in an Army camp, although--more than most--we were exposed +to the wide nights and their stars, the wonderful freshness of dawn, +and the extremes of heat and cold. There is a naked timelessness to +Army life that allies it to a sea. A soldier’s life was restricted +and oversimplified--he was not his own agent--and at the same time he +acted for the world, cast out on an open plain. A great waste took him, +equal in its surface or its depths, in being out of his hands. When he +protested, he was protesting against the passage of all the nights on +all the waters. + +I can remember a fellow barracksmate one evening after dark saying he +had something of great importance he had to speak to me about. We went +out and talked in the company street, standing on the sandy grounds +between the buildings, conscious of a towering night with flashing +stars. He talked desperately, on and on, about the life he had been +planning before the Army took him away; he complained that he and the +girl he was to marry had been put off; he talked bitterly about the job +which had now been denied him, the business he was going to establish, +and: “Why? Why? Why?” What business was it of the President of the +United States to start a war and send him into it? + +It is murderous not to be able to fight back. It is also appropriate +for the Army to denude the ground of its grass, the beach grass that +holds it down above the cliffs. It is appropriate for the sea to roam +on with a blind eye, and for the cliffs to fall and the sands to shift +and blow. It is inevitable, at one time or another, that each of us +should stand on these barren grounds. The gloom of the sea puts all +other darkness and gloom in jeopardy. Its brilliance is impenetrable. +It carries light over the earth’s surface like a turning crystal. It is +overbearing and restless and at the same time as strict and balanced +as its tides. Perhaps it is best approached in misery of soul, because +then it stands out in all its cryptic mastery as the raw room that owns +us, the desert without illusion. + +Camp Wellfleet had eight towers, spaced along the top of the cliff +for several miles. Watchers could look out from their transversing +positions over the coastline and the sea and signal the accuracy of +the antiaircraft gunners who fired at mobile targets over the water. +I climbed two of the towers that still had ladders. They were in fair +condition, but clearly not too long for this world of wind and spray, +of ice, rain, and snow, and the fierce summer sun. Most of the windows +were broken, the wires ripped off the control boards, and the floors, +with boards splintered or gone entirely, were littered with wire and +broken glass. A cold wet wind whined through. I wondered how many young +men had felt cast off, lonely, and bored on this lookout over the dark +sea. Some of those on duty had left their names behind, probably after +the war was over, judging by the dates: Sweeny, Morton, Yarborough, and +they also left the names, portraits, or disfigurements of their girls, +or would-be girls, the signs of need in wastes of order. + +Concrete gun emplacements and bunkers were still intact, with empty +cartridges and ammunition boxes on the ground outside. A strand of +barbed wire made a little clanging sound of unused warning as I brushed +by it. Toward the far end of the reservation, on the Eastham side, +I passed another off-limits sign and sat down on a ring of sandbags +located in a little hollow on the very edge of the cliff; they were +beginning to slide down the face of it like Marconi’s bricks. Looking +down on the beach where blackbacks and herring gulls were the only +sentinels, facing in to the wind, I thought of how many worlds, how +many inventions, how much devising we had run through, at a faster +rate even than the sea cut down the cliffs. The maniacal weight of one +war had gone, but the knowledge and power it let loose had sent us on, +committing us to our human ends in the most inclusive and at the same +time isolated sense, universally vulnerable. + +[Illustration] + +The wind sent dark clouds of ruffled waters along the sea surfaces, +surfaces that tilted and flew, stretching away and disappearing, and +the sky light, feather gray in the rain, reflected everywhere. The long +surf line sounded with the crash and rattle of stones. The vast flow +went on unhindered, restless and controlled, delivering and holding +back, a nay and yea sayer at the same time, passing all experiments, +accepting all possibility without a care. How could the sea do anything +about reassuring mankind as to whether or not we would survive our own +acts and commitments? Did man make war, or did war make him? Perhaps we +love the sea for its denial of us. + +Sitting on the sandbag, I thought of the GI who had last been there, +manning a gun now replaced by missiles and rockets--bothered perhaps +by the cold, penetrating wind, feeling useless, waiting for his +discharge from the Army, wishing he were somewhere else, not knowing +beach grass from seaside goldenrod, or one gull from another, but +knowing the sea, with its one sound. + + + + + VIII + + A Landscape in Motion + + +There are a number of elevations on the Cape from which it is possible +to see both sides, getting above intervening houses, trees, or hills. +On the same Wellfleet Plain where Camp Wellfleet was located the +moraine tilts all the way down from the cliff above the Outer Beach to +the shores of the bay, and reaches of land and water come into view +from all directions. One plane leads to another by easy transitions. +The cliff tops shine in the wind above the steady pouring sound of +the waves and the dancing of molten gold and silver on the sea. Beach +grasses glitter. The land ahead is full of coarse scrub oak and green +patches of bayberry moving toward dark green woods of pitch pine and +clusters of houses, reaching the sheltered shores of the bay beyond +them, with salt marshes, gold and red; water-shining, brown tidal +flats, and a rim of blue water on the distant horizon. + +It is a stunted land, not overhospitable to life by the looks of it, +although flocks of chickadees bounce gaily through the scrub as if +giving it their free acknowledgment. As the autumn progresses the reds +change to brown, plants darken or die down, shrubs lose their leaves, +and the grasses bleach. In all seasons it is a place of low growth, +ready in its hardy way to receive what the wind and sun can send it. +The sky is very wide overhead. You can see from one tidal area to +another--almost from one climate to another--standing on the bare +ground. In scale the view approximates what you can see from high in +the air. + +A plane shows you a much wider panorama, while diminishing the land, +eliminating the size of locality and local things. It takes you high +enough to see the curve of the earth, the concrete highways like +ribbons across the country, the thin lines of roads and streets, the +checkered fields, patches of lakes, and sprawling cities. A jet plane +cuts across time. You can run after the sun as it falls on the other +side of the world and almost catch it, following the mountain shadows +over America, and since you pass time in that sense, not able to go +faster than the speed of light, but crossing the rhythmic stations of +earth and sun, I have felt it as a longer journey than that involved in +a car or train. What might ordinarily take days is reduced to hours, +but when we landed I have felt the days in me as much as the hours. +We bypass the clock. We go from low to high, bridging a gap between +the individual and the universe, leaving earth’s confinements for +indefinite space, but local time is still inside us. + +On the ground, obviously enough, you limit the horizon by the extent of +your vision, and the horizon in turn limits you, but land and water are +held by their relationships to space and to each other. Apparently all +climatic cycles are world-wide; and the immediate, local weather is in +part dependent on the weather behind and ahead of it. In the same way +the only limit to the landscape is the globe itself. Its reaches go out +of sight, if not of universal measure. + +This seaside country often gives you the feeling that the sky is the +limit. One opening beyond the trees, another mile revealed, and the +earth and sea from the top of a dune, the world you stand on, may +become exalted in its scope. Perhaps people climb hills and mountains +not only to get to the top, or as an activity in its own right--reasons +often given in answer to questions that may be of no great value--but +to join the range of the world, to be up and outward bound, and above +all to have a sense of the unities in and beyond them. A greater +landscape means a new communion. + +I once climbed a small mountain in Maine with a group of Sea Scouts. +We stopped just below its summit, where there was a bowl surrounded +by rocky heights and slopes and holding clear, cold water, the size +of a small pond. The boys stripped and went in swimming, and all +their excited yelling as they jumped in and out of the water resolved +along the rock faces and deep crevices into echoes that rang and +choired--heard from above--like _Te Deums_ in a cathedral. And far down +and around for hundreds of miles were the houseless mountains flaming +with color. + +One of the boys asked: “How many acres do you think there are?” + +For all its matter-of-factness, his question brought us in touch with +massive distance, an over-all light and wind above the great carpets +of color, a landscape running with power, having a latent silence, a +prodigious weight and matter. + +Mountains or seashore make for revelation. So on this sandy, tilting +peninsula sight can keep on going. On one side the head-on majesty +of cliffs, beach, and open sea, and on the other, calm low headlands +facing sheltered waters, two different environments, with the west wind +blowing over and the clouds flaring and shifting in the sky. You are in +the lap of the waters, the balance of the tides, and in the arms of the +weather. + +Each patch of ground, varying in the degree to which it is receptive to +organic life, is a complexity of substance and influence. The weather +that circulates over it, and in terms of light, relative moisture, and +varying temperatures invests it too, has its seasonal constancies but +it is always in a state of change. Cape Cod feels much of the time as +if it were two-thirds wind, and people with touchy nerves might well +think they were being pushed by it in directions they were unable to go. + +The Cape has a maritime climate, somewhat milder than the mainland. +There is no use exaggerating its mildness since it can feel as cold +or colder than the rest of New England when the northwest wind takes +its uninterrupted course through the ribs of the land and sears its +way along the shore, but, in general, annual temperatures are slightly +higher. In central and western Massachusetts, in New Hampshire, +Vermont, and New York State, the average number of days between the +first severe, killing frost in the autumn and the last one in the +spring has been estimated at 180-210. For Cape Cod, on the other hand, +this is 120-150, the same that prevails in a thin coastal belt south of +the Cape to Virginia and North Carolina where it widens and starts west +across Tennessee. + +The waters to the south, in Buzzards Bay and Nantucket Sound, have a +higher annual temperature than the waters of the open Atlantic along +the Outer Beach and in Cape Cod Bay, a southern extension of the Gulf +of Maine. On the other hand the waters north of Cape Cod, though cooler +during the summer, tend to be warmer during the winter, because of the +depths of the Gulf of Maine and their heat-carrying capacity. Cape Cod +Bay, and Buzzards Bay have more sea ice than any equal area on the +coast of the United States with the exception of Alaska. Sustained +cold during January and February often results in weeks of pack ice +stretching off into the Bay as far as the eye can see, at least from +the level of the shore. This extra touch of the Arctic off the Cape is +due mainly to a combination of cold winter winds from the continent and +shallow water. + +The difference in average water temperatures between one side of the +Cape and the other may have its effects on the local weather. During +the fall especially, when cold air moves over the waters of Nantucket +Sound they may be covered with fog, whereas it can be bright and clear +over the Bay, only a few miles distant. The normal kind of fog occurs +when warm, moisture-laden air moves over cool or cold water, and is +quite common in spring and summer. When a cold, dry air mass, on the +other hand, moves over warmer waters it may result in what is called +“Arctic sea smoke” a kind of wispy, steamy fog in turbulent, rolling +air, rising to ten or fifteen feet above the surface of the water. + +During the winter Cape Cod is also subject to rapid changes in +temperature depending on whether the wind comes from the northwest, +with cold, dry, continental air, or from east and south off the ocean, +the latter being seldom below the freezing point. + +The tip at Provincetown has much the same temperature as the sea island +of Nantucket. On the other hand the town of Barnstable on the lower +Cape may have an average summer temperature which is slightly warmer +than Provincetown and a colder temperature in winter, since it is that +many miles closer to the interior. I have driven down the coast from +Boston several times during snowstorms when an area as close to the +Cape as Plymouth was completely covered with snow; and as I drove south +the storms turned to heavy flakes of wet snow on the near side of the +Cape Cod canal and then to rain as I went on. + +The sea’s capacity to store up solar energy means that it exercises a +moderating influence on the Cape, which is warmer during the winter +than the mainland and cooler during the summer. Also, there are +less thunderstorms on Cape Cod during the summer months than on the +mainland, and the annual rainfall is likely to be lower because there +is less showery precipitation, although local residents might be +justified in thinking that water was on them much of the year in one +form or another, as fog, salt spray, rain, or humidity. + +The late fall and winter is often characterized by cold, raw windy +days, with the temperature just above freezing or at the freezing +point, and the air is loaded with moisture from the sea and sometimes +smells of it. During heavy storms the wind drives the salt spray +inland with great force, depositing coats of salt on houses, telegraph +poles, and wires. + +During the winter the Cape seems at times to be caught and tossed +between the weather of the sea and that of the continent, but in +general the principal air masses during fall and winter come from +inland and in summer from the southwest. Winds from the north and west +usually bring in continental polar air, which is dry and cold, though +it may also arise in part from pacific maritime air. The source regions +for many of the storms of early spring and early fall are the Gulf of +Mexico and the Caribbean. Most of the severe spring storms, sometimes +coming after a fairly mild winter, are the so-called “coastwise +southeasters” which blow up the coast from off the Carolinas rather +than from the west. They can result in blizzards because their coastal, +maritime air if drawn into a low from the continent is cold enough to +make snow. + +Such simple generalities and fact sampling is not to suggest, like the +Chamber of Commerce, that more people ought to come to Cape Cod, but +that it is a land like all others, which is influenced by the forces +beyond it. It is no more gripped, pulled, and let go by the weather +than most other areas. In fact its temperature made it a good place for +the first English settlers to find. Think of the Middle West in July, +or January, for extremes! Yet Cape Cod has a special place in the wind, +an outside hold on the roaming of the seas and the advent of the air. + +The tides that rise and fall along this ocean-going spit of land are +just as varied in their way as the weather, but more predictable. They +accentuate the difference between one part of the Cape and another, +and they are responsible for some of its physical characteristics. +Great tidal ranges on the north side expose wide salt flats at low tide +and allow the development of broad areas of salt marsh in sheltered +embayments, whereas along the shores of Nantucket and Vineyard sounds, +where tide ranges are much smaller, the marshes and more exposed flats +are less extensive. + +In Cape Cod Bay and eastward to the coast of Maine the average tide +rises and falls about nine feet, but in Nantucket and Vineyard sounds +the range is up to four feet at the most, being as little as two feet +off Woods Hole and in some of the salt ponds. The time of high water +varies also. It occurs four hours later on the north side of the Cape +than at Buzzards Bay. + +The Outer Beach is an area of transition so far as the tides are +concerned, and their range drops steadily from nine feet at Race Point +to four feet at the end of Monomoy. These diverse tides, all along the +shores of the Cape, are a product of its very shape, and of the coast +from which it juts out, astride the submerged continental shelf, whose +shallow water also affects them. + +It is the nature of waves--and a tide is a wave of a special kind--to +move more slowly in crossing shallow water, rising at the same time to +a greater height. Waves expend the energy of their motion when they +increase in height, an effect which can be observed as they heap up +before breaking as surf on the beach. So the tidal wave moves in from +far offshore starting with relatively low ranges, some two or three +feet at Sable Island off Nova Scotia, with similar readings in Bermuda +and the Bahamas; but when it reaches the outer coast of the Cape it is +augmented. To the southwest of the Cape the increase is only moderate, +the figure for the entrance to Buzzards Bay being three and one half +feet; but moving north it gets much higher. To reach the shores of the +great embayment of the Gulf of Maine, formed where the coastline drops +away north and east of the Cape, the ocean’s tidal wave must first +cross the shallow waters of George’s Banks, a passage that requires +more than three hours (which explains the later time of high water in +the Bay). In the process the tidal height increases to the nine-foot +figure, a reading which is true of Provincetown, Plymouth, and on up +to the coast of Maine. + +So the Cape lies between two tidal systems, created and separated by +its geography. On the south side, incidentally, there is a complex +pattern of tidal movement caused by the fact that both systems meet. +Tidal waves enter the sounds between the Cape and the islands of +Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket from two directions and pass each +other. The combined effect of this “interference” results in rapid +changes in the time and height of the tide between Monomoy and Woods +Hole. Off Nobska Point one tidal wave movement is high, while the other +passing it is low. Their interference results in the smallest range of +tide (one and a half feet) to be found along the south shore. A similar +minimum tidal range occurs off the southeast corner of Nantucket. + +I am neither a trained scientist nor an accomplished sailor. I am +inclined to use facts for unfactual ends and do not have enough +knowledge of the wind not to be tipped over at any time, but if you +feel complexity and admire mathematics while in a state of comparative +ignorance then perhaps you have some claims on knowing. Most of us have +had a hand in observing the weather or gauging the levels of the tide. +Weather guessing or complaining is second nature, and on the beach, or +by means of the pilings on the wharf, you can guess the tidal range +quite easily or judge whether the tides are in or out. On some level +below that we have air and tides in us that know the energies of earth +from past acquaintance, but we are much too ready to mistrust these +depths and to let other authorities do our work for us. Perhaps our +natural senses are becoming atrophied. In any case, we do not seem to +be sure whether it is the energy of the head or of the heart that we +should use for our purposes. But put yourself in the middle of the +weather and within the reach of the tides and they sometimes begin to +roam in concert in as many ways and to the incalculable extent that you +have responses stemming from your brain. All the distant swelling and +swinging, the synchronization and intermoving of the waters, becomes +as real and immediate as the repositioning of the sun and the changing +of its shadows. The over-all wind; the light that shines on the beach +grass, moves over the pebbled ground, and sparkles the sea, or turns it +into a blazing white cauldron; the knowledge of cold massive depths in +one place, warm shallows in another, come into feeling as both unified +and infinitely complex. I may fail at mathematics but be an unconscious +mathematician, judging galaxies by the ways of light before my eyes. + +At my feet, as I sit on the sandy ground on the cliff top, there is a +hole made by a spider, neatly defined at the top by a little rim of +grasses. Rabbit dung lies here and there. There are a broken puffball, +dried leaves, and seeds; and the wind has blown so constantly over the +level and open parts of the ground as to take away loose sand and leave +a surface of pebbles, which are more or less stable, while mounds and +hillocks are held together by shrubs and grasses. These are evidence +of a poor community, holding down as best it can, though it is open to +migrants and migration all the same. + +What lies underfoot changes in a few hundred yards toward vegetation +which is a little more protected, and less exposed to violent light +and dessicating wind, with low oaks and pitch pines, wood floors, +with a certain amount of decaying litter, graduating upward in the +quantity of organic life, but the open, exposed, diminished look of +this environment also suggests its inherent mobility with all the other +component parts of this running world, taking original light and shadow +from the vast sky. + +The crow with its ragged wings banking away over the tree-tops, the +rabbit hopping into a thicket, the fish that school unseen in the salt +waters, the man who watches, are all manifestations of a complexity +of association and alliance that stops on no single shore. Like our +restrictions with respect to the horizon, we only see, we only live, +a fraction of the possibilities allowed in so great a range; and being +restricted, we oversimplify, cutting life and land down to size ... a +poverty that makes for poverty. + +I hear the steady pouring sound of the depths behind me and I see and +feel them rising and falling, taking their inexorable passage around +the Cape. The wind whistles through and like the in and out of breath +lifts and subsides. Field crickets trill monotonously and faintly +in competition with the wind. Crows call. Seeds blow along the bare +ground. A winged seed flies by, next year’s fruition if it lands, this +year’s providing, perhaps destined to skim out over the surface of the +sea. A flock of snow buntings swings back and forth, twittering high in +the air. Gulls circle in the distance above a garbage dump hidden by +the trees. + +In this landscape, here and out of sight, is a mutuality of response, +through the sea with its thousands of miles of variety constantly in +motion, and the land besieged by the sea, with dry and infertile soil, +but in a web of tides and climatic influence that keeps its character +actively in tune. Like the buntings, or a flock of sanderlings +spinning, sun reflecting, diving through the heights above the shore, +the opportunity of grace and power is always waiting for its use, +and nothing that lives and participates can be called insignificant, +from the cricket to the crow. Diversity is the rule, and each form is +exceptional in its employment. + +Through any part of the earth there is a placement, the appropriate +condition for plants, animals, the soil, and its constituents, to +maintain themselves. The optimum is that there shall be full use within +any given range of opportunity. The more diversified a living community +is the more healthy it is, not only in numbers, but in complex +relationships. Even a “poor” seaside environment proves this by the +very demands it makes for survival. The plants that adapt themselves +to it do so by means both various and precise. Even sand grains have a +relationship to each other in the rhythmic order of wind and waves. +The life that comes to these shores, winging in, trying to take hold, +blown out, taking semipermanent residence, has its own affinity for +place, an organic knowledge of its own part in the physical world. It +belongs to an innumerable company with exacting tasks. + +Each life proves the need of all others. In a miraculous way, as each +natural form is miraculous, the single is also manifold. The rabbit, +as it nibbles grass, calls in the hawk. The spider is related, in its +reproduction and survival, to the insect it eats. The soil requires +microbes to break it down. The growth of plants is directed toward +capturing the energy of the sun. Life calls life in the context of +earth, water, and sky. + +Throughout the wide landscape are a succession of environments, with +communities adapting to constant change, characterized by so much +mutual attraction and repulsion, so many delicate balances, such a +variety of response to influence inside and out that there is hardly a +stopping point for attention. We study particular environments so as to +predict and understand the behavior of animals, the reaction in plants +to variations in the intensity of light, or to relative moisture, or to +the chemical constituents of the soil. Each place has its character, +its complexity, and bounds. + +But environment is more a characteristic of range than a separation in +its own right. All migration says so. The division between a pond and +its surrounding woodland is fairly distinct. A pond is an entity unto +itself. So is the division between salt water and fresh. But the frog +that lays its eggs in a pond may travel through the woods during the +summer. The salmon, the alewife, and the shad reproduce in fresh water +and grow up in the sea. Eels do the opposite. + +In a sense each area has its representative, like the water birds, +from petrels that spend most of their lives over the open ocean, to +fresh-water ducks dabbling among the reeds. There are herons adapted +to spear fishing in the shallows; terns that dive for fish in surface +waters; others that swim after them under the water. Some of the +adaptations are so precise that if the particular food supply of a +species is endangered, so is existence of the bird itself. + +On the other hand the very distinctness of each species, sharp-billed, +webfooted, with gliders’ or divers’ wings, seems to impart range to +countless others, those which exist and have existed, those which +may develop in a vast and unknown future. The difference, the space, +between a gannet and a dovekie, a great blue heron and a frigate bird, +proves all the depths of opportunity. + +As I look out on the waters to east and west, to north and south, +I either see or envisage banks of fog far offshore, warm summer +squalls, biting cold air, torrents of brilliance in the sky, leaping +and ponderous deliberation in the waves. Warm air meets me from the +Bahamas, cold air from the Arctic, and the migrants pass me as they +travel in between. This earth, regardless of man’s construction of it, +is always re-relating its contexts, playing out new themes ahead. + +In this distance, near to far, there is force, and its limits, a +counterbalancing as well as intermingling in the land, weather, and +tides, and in almost hidden terms the concurrent response of countless +inhabitants: the seed makers and dispensers, the hole diggers, the +fliers, scuttlers, and divers, those that swim, crawl, or walk. They +take part in range after range of consumption and growth, of trials and +failures, with endless patience, sudden quickness, flows of energy, +going through death and the travel-round of reproduction. They are +dancers in a realm that knows where all its leadings are. + +There are dynamic secrets underfoot. Lives dawn of which we are +entirely unaware. Can we bring ourselves down to their great +participation, waiting through dawns, attending the sun, hiding under +the reality of wind and storm, where obedience means praise? Here +is that universal guarantee of novelty and increase which we try so +narrowly to imitate, substituting our simplicity for its complexity, +our distressed communality for its balanced crowds, our greed and +invention for its terrible provenance. Lord have mercy on us! + + + + + IX + + Who Owns the Beach? + + +In the “off” and empty season, after the tides had erased all signs of +a hundred thousand human feet, it was hard to believe that the beach +could be owned or claimed by any one. It took on the air’s cold or +warmth, receiving, passing things on, from one day and seasonal mood +to another, not as on the land with its plant and animal reactions and +obstructions, the hiding; shadowing; coming forth intermittently; but +in bold and naked sight, reducing weather to its single qualities. + +One day the Cape would be sunny and comparatively warm, and on the +next in would come the authentic northern wind, the polar air, roaring +and sweeping around with fierce abandon, riotously hard and cold, +freezing the ground, cutting at a man, diving on him with an icy +weight. The winter wind is so definite when it comes, overwhelming a +fairly moderate climate, where roses often bloom late into the fall +and hollies grow, as to make you think of icebergs, sliding down from +the north unexpectedly to stand hundreds of feet overhead. The sky, +threatening snow, writhes and purls up with gray clouds spreading +fanwise like auroras, and in the evening the sun goes down with a +coppery band on the horizon overhung by a bank of steely-blue clouds as +menacing as a shark. + +And the great beach received what came to it, retaining its primal +right to a deeper breath and regularity, a harsh “poverty-stricken” +environment where man has no lease worth the paper. It did seem utterly +deserted, although the herring gulls and blackbacks flew up steeply +over the wind-buffeted waves, then banked and glided away, and draggers +occasionally moved parallel to the beach bucking the choppy seas, their +lines out astern. The wind threw stinging clouds of sand ahead of it. +Except for the fishermen and the gulls, it was an abandoned world, +glistening wide and cold, lost to importance and sense so far as human +society was concerned. For man there is no force quite so inclusive as +his own. + +Since the beach is comparatively empty and isolated during fall and +winter, the sight of life on its sands may seem as rare as a rider +approaching you across the desert. I remember what an extraordinary +thing it seemed one afternoon to see a tiny red crab moving very slowly +along, high-legged over the bare slopes of the beach. I identified it +later as a species of spider crab. Green crabs, rock crabs, calico +crabs, and others are common along the protected shores of the Cape, +but out on this stretch of beach they are rarities. This baby, with +its beak, antennae, and eyes backed and covered by a knobbed and spiky +shell, seemed like an exotic from another world, which in fact it was, +having been flung in by the surf from rocks and seaweed forests in the +waters beyond it. It not only added to the beach, but to me, since it +made me realize that these sands were only shelving off into further +dimensions. The beach is a repository of freight, wreckage, and lives +from foreign lands. + +This also happens occasionally on land. We all know that the sea is +out there, that the wind swirls over us, and the storms carry more +traffic than planes, but strangers sometimes appear as if to prove that +no place is what it seems to be. One spring a vermillion flycatcher +suddenly appeared in the neighborhood. I saw it in its exciting +tropical gaiety as it flew down next to a shining patch of spring rain +on an asphalt road. It is a native of Texas and New Mexico. Black +or turkey buzzards ride the great airs of spring and sometimes fly +northward, wheeling unexpectedly overhead. In November of 1962 I saw a +black stork, _Ciconia nigra_, which had somehow managed to make it all +the way across the Atlantic Ocean, perhaps managing to stop for rests +in such areas as Greenland and Newfoundland. It landed near the Coast +Guard Station, now National Seashore Park headquarters, at Eastham, in +an exhausted state, to be picked up by the Audubon Society and later +transported to the warmer climate of Florida. + +The black stork breeds from Central Europe to Korea and China, and it +winters in Africa after a long round of migratory journeys. Its advent +was greeted with a certain amount of mild curiosity and even some jokes +in the local paper, one of which had to do with its liking for Cape +Cod scallops on its arrival. What better reason for coming here! (The +truth is that like other newly captured birds, it had to be force-fed.) +In any case it was a rare event, joining Cape Cod with Africa, and to +see it was equivalent to seeing an antelope on Route 6. With large +strong wings, attenuated red legs, a long, stout pinkish bill, red +around the eyes, it waited in captivity with what seemed to be an air +of great sadness, transplanted as it was, taken in to a gray, cold land +without any sound but engines, human voices, and the wind, without any +greenery but the thin-needled pines; and it roosted silently, twitching +occasionally in its inactive unused state, an unwilling, unwitting +Marco Polo in New England. + +This is a narrow place, restricted by nature and by men, but foreign +lives still fly to it like sparks in the air, and the sea beyond it +takes things on their way with more room than analogy is yet aware of. +What the sea sends in, like a dead skate, a starfish, horse mussel, or +finger sponge, seems perfectly familiar as fish, marine, background +animals, but they are also genuine primitives, remote not only from +human physiology and complete understanding but from that part of the +earth’s surface that we inhabit. In fact many of the hints of marine +life that are either brought up along the beach, or that appear in +offshore waters, like a whale or a dolphin, have a theatricality, an +off-stage hint of a wealth of other acts, tricks, and forms still to be +seen. The simple, primal watery element has embodiments of use which +are comprehensible and have been studied for a long time, but these +are endowed with physical natures and capabilities that might make an +air-breathing, earth-bound human quite envious. + +During a violent coastal storm, with winds up to seventy and eighty +miles an hour, an exhausted harbor porpoise was cast up on a bay beach +recently, and there it died. I confess I had never seen one out of +water or even close to me before. For all the pictures I had seen, and +all I had read, nothing prepared me for such perfection. Its round +body, four to five feet long, was butt-ended at its head, in which +there were small eyes, and small teeth in the jaws. It had just as much +of the quality of flow as a raindrop, and at the same time was a solid +packing of energy. Its skin graded down from the jet black of its back +and upper sides through streaks of gray like rain along the sea down +to a white belly, and without scales, it had a thick, smooth satiny +polish like ebony or horn, perhaps reminiscent of synthetic rubber or +plastic but of an organic texture which neither of those products could +equal. The porpoise had a single fin on its back and a tail that could +strike vertically for power and thrust. Its body was fairly heavy, +weighing about a hundred pounds, but everything of speed and liquidity +and dashing, leaping strength was reflected there. It lay on the upper +part of the beach, conspicuous among the long piles of storm litter, +the logs, pieces of broken dories, and thick seaweed, spectacular in +its simplicity, a black and white that made me think of breaking waves +in the night sea. I saw it curve over the surfaces of the water with +consummate grace, slide away, and disappear. + +“Where did you ever see more of nothing?” I was once asked as I looked +out over endless dry Texas plains billowing like waves. Nothing or +everything. Who knows? Who knows what the emptiness leads to or +contains? The beach lies open. Its sands and rattling stones lead back +through ages of weathering and change and are at the same time part of +the wide give and take of the present. + +The tiny spider crab, though isolated on the beach, was also a link +with a teeming offshore existence, which hid in shadowy worlds of kelp +and rockweed, or floated and roamed by with a free energy that was in +complete denial of our tightening fall and winter world. Backed by a +cliff, walking on sands shadowed and cold, faced by the churning waves, +it is hard to believe in a life so rich. There are no rocky shores +revealed at low tide and streaming with weed to prove the temperate +fertility of the sea. The beach is a transition zone between one +environment and another, but except in those areas where the cliffs are +reduced to low sand hills, protecting a marsh or estuary behind them, +the transition is a sharp one, the sands dipping from the inconstant +sky to the constancy of salt water. + +Along those stretches of beach where the sea has taken stones and +boulders and deposited them offshore, storms sometimes bring in fairly +large quantities of seaweed, which need beds of stone for their +attachment. The fucus or rockweed, the laminaria or kelp, and some of +the “red” algae like Irish moss which are among the more common kinds +found along the beach, have no roots, since the plants take all their +nourishment from the sea water that surrounds them, but are anchored by +holdfasts, stubby structures which in the laminaria may look like the +exposed, above-ground roots of some tropical trees, and in the fucus +a round expansion of the tissues at its base, which is strongly and +tightly sealed to the surface of rocks and stones. + +Everything about these weeds, with divided, narrow, or tapering fronds +to resist being torn by the waves, with bladders serving as floats, +with gelatinous surfaces, with hollow stems, are eloquent of the nature +of salt water, its ebb and flow, its depths, its capacious circulation. +The seaweeds found on the beach, black, thin, dried out, or fresh and +slippery, olive green, brown, or red, having been torn loose by a +storm, start growing beyond the violent action of the surf, and grow +for the most part to a depth of some forty or fifty feet. Different +varieties like different depths, but since they are not free floating +unless torn loose they are not found beyond the point where rays of +sunlight, necessary for manufacturing food, cannot reach them. + +Over and beyond them, in surface waters where the light penetrates +before being absorbed, is a vegetation, varying in abundance according +to place and season, but of incredible numbers over all, the one-celled +microscopic organisms that are the basic food of all the seas. The +seaweeds are simple and primitive in structure compared with much of +the plant life on land, the more hazardous, contrary environment, and +the members of the phytoplankton (the planktonic plants), even more so, +although the diatoms, which form a large part of it, show a variety +of outer form. Each diatom has a skeleton, made largely of silica, an +outer shell hard enough to resist easy dissolution when the plant dies. +It is formed like a pillbox, or a casket, or it is shaped like a quill, +a ribbon, or rod, or it is joined with others in beads and chains. +Each is minute, an etched, crystalline perfection, and each is lost +in other billions, which we might only see on occasion as a green or +greenish-brown stain across the water. + +The shells of dead diatoms rain down through the water and form thick +deposits on the floor of the sea. The cliffs above the beach are full +of them. Cities have been built on their fossilized shells. In their +number the diatoms balance the magnitude of the sea. In size they are +basic to the existence of the minuscule animals of the zooplankton that +feed upon them, and are eaten by larger animals in turn. A diatom’s +delicacy and sparkling beauty as it reflects the light could indicate +that universal productivity must start with a jewel, and perhaps end +with it too. + +That which is minute, like the diatoms, or cells, which are the basic +structure of life, is a clue to the significance of things, leading +from the simple to the complex and multifarious, but finally rounding +us back to where we started. A man himself is the unique single cell +with its own nature. Each life has its irreducible quality. I have been +told that if you look at a diatom through an electronic microscope, +from one increased magnification to another, you can see all its +protuberances and layers disappear, and finally a sparkling crystalline +form is revealed, like a cosmic surprise. + +I suppose it is part of my fate as a large and clumsy animal of the +mammalian order, crashing through the underbrush, knocking down trees, +and displacing earth’s other inhabitants, to miss a great deal, at +least with my unassisted eyes. To learn about some new form of life +which I may have been passing by for years is often something of a +redemption. I can then say that we have not yet been so run down by our +own traffic that we have lost the capacity to see. + +Not long ago a colony of bryozoans was pointed out to me, at least the +gelatinous crusts of the compartments in which they lived, like little +tufts and fringes attached to the fronds of seaweed cast up on the +beach. They are tiny colonial animals that make cups and compartments +joined together in branching stems, from which they send out little +crowns of delicate, filamentous tentacles waving in the water. There +are three thousand marine species of them, growing in different forms, +and having different surfaces for their attachment. I had thought +previously that the little pale-colored, branched tufts were a part of +the seaweed. Now another small marvel had appeared on my horizon. + +The beach was empty where I walked, except for bird tracks, tidal +wrack, driftwood, bits of shell, or a finger sponge in evidence of +the life alongside it, and depending on the warmth and receptivity to +life that the season held, excepting also whatever microscopic animals +might be crawling over wet surfaces around the sand grains. Again, +emptiness, or poverty, is always qualified. After all the copepods, the +nematodes or thread worms, and other groups unseen or unknown to me +might be underfoot in vast numbers; and as I continued on there was no +counting the number of little holes in the sand made by beach fleas or +sand hoppers. As the autumn deepened I supposed they were unoccupied +and deserted, since these beach dwellers, as I had heard it, should +have been tucked away in their burrows by this time, with the door shut +above their heads, waiting for March and April to bring a warm sun +which could tease them out of dormancy. But one bright morning in the +middle of November I saw a great many of them hard at work. + +At first I noticed thousands of little mounds on the surface of the +sand in a strip some six to fifteen feet wide along the upper part +of the beach, following in general the outlines of the previous high +tide. Where a log or shelving bank was in the way, these mounds, and +the many holes accompanying them, about knitting-needle size, were +concentrated on the seaward side. I noticed that shore birds had +attempted to pluck the occupants from their holes and had reached down +two to three inches. I scooped out the sand where a hole was, spread +it around, and revealed a little animal not over a half inch long, +with two large eyes covering the sides of its narrow head. The eyes +were not only conspicuous, they were also startlingly white; and the +sand-hopper’s body flattened on both sides, was a mother-of-pearl, +somewhat translucent. This odd creature, one of a family in the order +of amphipods, is called _Talorchestia megalopthalma_, a title that +gives special credit to its eyes. + +I put my pale-moon animal back in its hole, but to be held and thrust +against its own volition apparently immobilized it, so I let it go free +down the sands. After a second or two it made a few big and seemingly +crazy hops--on sidelong springs like a toy--down a line of mounds and +holes, popped into a hole and promptly disappeared. + +I noticed that little spouts and bursts of sand were coming from many +of these holes and with a little patience I could see some of the +hoppers coming up as if to look around, as is customary with gophers +and chipmunks, and then turning around and going back down again. What +they were doing of course was a major job of digging, passing the sand +up from one pair of legs to another and throwing it out the hole with +a jerk. There was hardly time or inclination to pause and look around +the far horizon. It was work that had to be done unceasingly, between +tides and between seasons. Perhaps, if tomorrow brought consistently +freezing temperatures, they might not appear again in any great numbers +until spring; but their usual daily round meant frenzied feeding at +low tide and after dark when no winged predators were around, followed +by another return to the upper beach and another furiously energetic +period of digging homes for themselves. Terrestrial animals, which +might drown after a period of immersion, and yet bound on this strip of +sand to the tides, they had a more legitimate claim to the beach than +most of us. + +Looking down at them, or in on their busyness, I had an extraordinary +Gulliverlike feeling of encroaching on a world to which I did not +belong. It was one kind of an eye looking at another without any sense +of whether it was seen in turn or not, in a dichotomy of function, +race, size, and place. It took the beach out of my possession. This was +a place of other-world connections at which I could hardly guess. Do +we need to wait for the men from Mars? + +These are extravagant animals, with their grandiose if relatively blind +eyes, with their feats of digging, their hunger dance. In a sense they +have a very narrow range, between upper and lower tide, between one +season and the next, between feeding and digging on their strip of +sand, between hiding and emerging, and their life span is short; but +what a use they make of it! + +_Talorchestia megalopthalma_ is now on my life list, as the “birders” +put it, a pearly prodigy of moon leaps that may, for all I know, be the +beach’s foremost citizen. + +I also caught a glimpse of another little animal as I turned over a +piece of driftwood. It had numerous legs (seven pairs in all, I have +learned), and a flattened body, though slightly rounded on top, and +oval in shape, reminding me of a pill bug or sow bug, one of my most +familiar landed neighbors, which can be found under almost any boulder +or log that provides shade and moisture. The marine, or beached member +of the family I met, was grayish white in color, and apparently had the +same preference for moisture--if not too much, since it evidently lived +at the high-tide line, and was “terrestrial” like the sand hoppers. +Some of these isopods swim in the open sea, others live in shallow +water, or at the low-tide line, and most are scavengers, feeding on +dead animal matter. + +All these and countless others are symptomatic of a tidal range, an +ebb and flow that extends between sea and land in terms of millions +of years of emergence and adaptation. In them the two worlds find +their division and also their meeting and intercommunication. Their +characteristic areas, their “life zones,” from the tropics to the +poles, all require extremes of risk and of the struggle to survive it. +In one place or another they dance to the inexorable measure of things, +limited in what they do but exceptional in their way of doing it. + +On this beach, so unique, so well defined, and at the same time so +widely involved, every upward surge of the waves and every bubbling +retreat sinking through the sand, every range of tide, from the new +moon to the old, every storm, every change in the season, every day and +every night, is embodied in existence. + +I would think it presumptuous of me to claim any more on behalf of a +bug or myself than we could in our honest natures fulfill, but faced by +the shining tides of life, I am sure we have great things to do. + +My translations are on this beach. I am still a part of its measure, +and when I forget those overwhelming controls that human power insists +on, and all the artificiality men use to overcome their natural +limitations, I begin to partake in this miraculous context. It is a +cold beach, a bitter sea. Covered with cold, the sands impersonally +receive the shadows moving over them tall and wide, gradually shifting +and easing over slopes and shoulders toward the surf with its continual +lunge, its pull and push, displacing the pale light that stands over +the beach and gives it a hard winter brightness. The waves pour and +foam and bubble up the beach and recede with a rainlike glistening and +seething that sinks in, leaving dark stains behind. The middle part of +the beach shows long thin lines like scars where the last tides came, +part of the never ending drawing and erasing on this tablet of the +sea’s art. It is all clean, and naked, defined, and at the same time +rhythmically boundless, providing everything that comes to it with an +inexhaustible dimension. It needs another language, and at the same +time no language could really encompass it. In this bold breath and +silence moving up, scene shifting, always starting again, there are +decisions of sun and waves, of wind and light, that leave me with a +true silence, a great room to fill, though it is in my blood and veins, +the roots of me to feel, and any companion whom I meet must be in an +ancient earth sense completely new, with a freshness made of a million +years. + + + + + X + + Deer Week + + +The wind buffeted the sea surfaces so that they were loaded with +whitecaps. A black and white fishing boat was bucking up and down +offshore. It was a bold and empty day. Aside from the two men that I +could see in the boat, the shore was a world unoccupied, bright, wide, +and cold, one about which the mass of us might care or know very little. + +On the other side, where marshes and inlets entered from the bay, black +ducks cast themselves up into the wind, and mergansers rode the choppy +waters. The bay also ran hard with whitecaps; and the wind with a bare +fury roared head on at empty summer houses facing the north, and drove +across headlands glistening with bearberry where pitch pines on slopes +in its lee would suddenly take the hard air with a swish, rocking and +shaking, then subside to shake again. The wind brought the whole north +with it and the gulls that hung there or rose steeply into it, were +allied with its violence in a way that was hard to understand. + +Halfway between these two realms there was a great deal of human +preoccupation in evidence. It was deer week, early in December, and the +pitch-pine woods resounded to the firing of guns like the hard slamming +of doors, and down the highway at least every other car was loaded with +hunters dressed in red, and on nearly every sandy side road several +cars were parked. Later on, I even saw a man standing on the cliff +looking out to sea, and I wondered if a deer might have escaped him in +that direction. + +Regulations now required that men wear yellow-orange luminescent +patches on their backs, so when they all trooped out of their cars +like spectators at a football game, they seemed as covered with neon +lighting as a city street. In fact many of them do come from cities +to the north and south of the Cape, which can now be reached in much +faster time than used to be the case, and they follow the same pattern +as many of the summer tourists, in and out, fire and run. For those who +live away from streets and highways, deer week can seem perilous. The +lookouts stand blocking the side roads and sometimes park their cars +across them. They troop whooping and hollering through the woods where +I live. The guns resound from all points of the compass. + +Earlier in the season is the allotted time for shooting game birds. +One afternoon I met a number of men who were returning from a hunting +expedition on the shore. It had been fruitless. One man had managed to +shoot a partridge on the way, but he ruefully admitted that someone had +stolen it from the back of his pickup truck. Crowds of hunters started +straggling back, while guns were still going off in what seemed a +completely indiscriminate and probably frustrated fashion. + +“Pretty hot around here today!” said one old man with great +cheerfulness. + +I was helping one of the hunters extricate his station wagon from a +muddy hole, and by that time I had a feeling that, like many other +human enterprises, hunting was a communal affair which might turn out +one way or another, but like a battle, had no certain outcome. It was +clear, in any case, that very few of these men had much of an idea +about the habits of the animals they were hunting. Some species of +ducks, for example, feed more readily after sundown and so are more +easily found, and more vulnerable. A half century ago, the population +of wild fowl was probably less safe than it is now. A yellowlegs, +flying up out of a marsh in late autumn, did not have much of a chance +to start south. Some local hunter was waiting in anticipation, someone +who probably knew the marshes and the shore as his ancestors had known +them. + +If the hunters had an unlimited season on this narrow peninsula, Cape +Cod would be in a state of siege the year around, regardless of what +happened to the ducks, partridge, quail, or deer. We have the universal +problem of room and numbers. After all, the human population is +increasing at a faster rate than most birds. Perhaps our populatedness +results in less concern for the rest of life simply through lack of +association with it. Do we know what we are shooting at? Hunters who +blast away into flocks of eiders or Canada geese, leaving many of them +wounded, unable to retrieve the rest because they are too far out in +the water, are not doing anything but getting rid of their feelings, +which are not necessarily worth cherishing. + +The deer population may not decline because of hunting. Their numbers, +their balance between starvation and survival depends largely on the +kind of country they live in, on its vegetation. Cape Cod is only a +half mile in width in some parts of it, seven or eight in others, but +down the middle of it there is a wide belt of low growth, of tangles, +shrubs, and low, cut-over woodland which provides good forage for deer +and good concealment, even with the human armies in their midst. + +Hunting deer is thought of as an American heritage, our birthright, +part of the Thanksgiving celebration, handed down from fathers to sons. +Since deer are one of those species, unlike their predators the wolf +and the mountain lion, that have managed to live abundantly in the +presence of man, so much so that they sometimes require “weeding” to +save them from starvation, hunting them is as legitimate as it ever +was, provided the hunting is controlled; but we no longer need them as +we did. + +Having left the age behind when venison was our essential meat, +we now have an odd relationship with the white-tailed deer. In +some states more deer are killed by cars than by hunters. They are +directly influenced by human civilization. In turn, civilization is +dependent on them to the extent that they provide the basis for a +multimillion-dollar industry. We think that it is our hunter’s right +that deer should exist, but we are not the hunters that we used to be. +What is a deer for? Guns, gasoline, clothing, ammunition, whiskey? + +The fact that they are still wild in the midst of us may be more to +our advantage than any claims we make on them. They are afraid of man +and keep their distant beauty from him. The heritage _they_ keep is +wildness, which still has the power to arouse fear in us, and sometimes +pity, as we may pity all life, including our own, that is cut short or +broken by the inexorable laws of the universe. + +On that December day during deer week, full of cold air and the +sounding guns, I saw a doe walking across the road, some distance ahead +of me and not many yards behind the beach. Two cars had just roared by +with hunters in them, before she made her appearance. She seemed either +wounded or exhausted, going very slowly, pulling her hindquarters +stiffly behind her. When she saw me, that white flag of a tail flew +up and she went off the road up a slope into the woods, but with only +moderate speed. And then the doe shivered somewhere on the cliffs under +the all-mastering winter air, a legitimate prey of men, who turned up +their car heaters and sped away. + +Later on I found deer tracks on the cliff tops where I walked, and a +hollow where a deer had rested and bent down the grass. I could see +the hunters sitting or standing all along the shore road, waiting +with rifles ready, walking into the woods behind, getting in and out +of their cars; and their “ho!,” “hah!,” or “garr!,” sounded across +the way. After a while a number of them began to hurry ahead, almost +tumbling as they ran, to converge on a deer which had apparently run +to the bottom of a hollow. They surrounded the hollow on all sides, +many men standing on their car tops with rifles pointing down. Whether +there was actually a deer in view, whether it was shot, or managed to +escape, I never learned. There were too many guns in the neighborhood +for comfort. + +The doe moved on slowly through the stunted trees above the sea, not +too long for this world perhaps, and the fishing boat--a very rough +trade on that day for common flesh and blood--rocked forward through +the waves. After a while the darkness began to fall, with a thin smoky +yellow and pink band on the western horizon and a new blanket of gray +clouds mounting overhead, so that all of us began to turn in under the +cold breath of night. + +I wonder, in that light which changes for us every hour, every minute +of the day, through the wild wastes of the sky, through the countless +years of earthly inheritance and change, how we became so overmastering +in our numbers and needs, so divorced from the exactions of nature? +Shall we meet up only with ourselves? + +Perhaps all hunters, those who know their deer, their mountains, and +their forests, with an ancient admiration, and even those who abuse a +hunter’s “right,” knowing nothing but confusion, are trying to keep in +contact with a natural mortality which our world denies. Perhaps we +need help from other animals besides the human one. + +Everything in this landscape, from gulls and ducks to driftwood, +marsh grasses, and deer, had a vital distinction. The beach with its +perpetual reshaping and scouring worked on each stone and lifted +each grain of sand, so long as there was stone and sand. The gulls +hung overhead, colors fitting the shore and sky. Even the boat had +a fittingness, a sea size of its own, and so with feathers, logs, or +purple stones, all in solitary nobility, but swept and washed into a +mutual keeping by the air and the tidal presence of the sea. I asked +it to show us light and life which was our undiscovered own to help us +through our mutual violence and upheavals, our narrow days. + + + + + XI + + Impermanence Takes Its Stand + + +Just as the sand bars offshore change shape continually, and the beach +loses and gains in volume and elevation, so the plants and trees work +so hard to hold on in their shifting ground that they never reach a +climax state. They are pioneers. Such a place is open, as all earth’s +shores must be, to drifters, like the black stork. + +The driftwood that lands on the beach and sometimes piles up in great +numbers and bulk on the upper tide level after a storm, could come in +from almost anywhere: Africa, Brazil, Massachusetts, Maine, or Nova +Scotia, depending on how it was transported, by ships or by the sea +itself. Years ago, sailing ships traveling along the Outer Cape with +cargoes of lumber chained to their decks might encounter heavy seas and +be in serious danger of grounding on the shoals, in which case they +would occasionally jettison the cargo, which would land up and down +the beaches, to be picked up by those famous human scavengers, the +“moon-cussers.” Since such lumber was often in the form of planks or +studding, it supplied many a family with material for their houses. I +can think of at least one house which is largely constructed of it. + +Or as it happened not so many years ago, a log jam in a Maine river +broke the boom and the logs went careening and dipping down to the sea, +a great many landing after a while on the Outer Beach. Huge trunks of +trees sometimes appear, carried in by the sea. I have found cherry, +red and white pine, cedar, spruce, beech, and even some canoe birch +with the bark still on it, a tree not indigenous to the Cape. Mahogany +and walnut have been found at times, and a few years ago the cross +section of a tree was discovered near Eastham that turned out to be a +very hard and heavy wood from Brazil, probably fallen off a ship. Parts +of dories, or larger vessels, broken oars; buoys of all colors and +shapes, glass floats from lobster pots, branches, logs; boards of many +different sizes and lengths, wharf pilings and planks, and dunnage, +timbers used in stowing ship’s cargoes, cases of scotch, always, in +my sad experience, without the scotch; crates from vessels of all the +world, South American, Russian, Japanese, French, and most of the +nations you can name; all these and more have been carried by the sea, +sometimes for twenty or thirty years, until they were finally landed on +the beach. It is wood for the fire, a house, a shack, or a table, and +material for any curious scavenger, on behalf of aesthetics, science, +or history. + +The driftwood is a migrant, to move again soon, unless it is taken +off the beach, burned in a fire, or lodged and buried deep above the +high-tide line. It may serve temporarily as a place where seaweed and +other litter gathers, or where crustaceans might congregate. The birds, +if it is an accessible clump of branches fingering over the sands, +rather than a log or heavy timber, may peck through it after such tiny +animals, their tracks making a delicate tracery running under it and +arrowing away. Driftwood migrates like the sand and the birds. It is +another aspect of the surf’s swing and draw, its dragging out, its +removal and its deposition, part of the constant remolding of this +shore. + +On the cliff tops too, over the beach and the round horizon, everything +goes out and round and returns. A curve is the only rule. As it does +everywhere on the Cape, the wind goes across from one direction of +the compass or another, streaming with light and moisture, lifts up, +lifts you to it, and with long low swoops, sudden breaths and seething, +it whisks the waters of the marshes and inlets, rounds their brown +shoulders, races through trees and over cliffs clean through across the +sea. The land under it, held down more definitely than beach or dunes, +also waves as they do. + +The heights above the beach, the low dipping slopes and hills, though +vulnerable over long periods of time, foot by foot and yard by yard, +look unrelievedly intense and bold. They glisten under the open light, +the open draws of the sky. There are miles of scrub oak, bayberry, and +beach-plum thickets shining as if they were wet with light, or, in the +winter months, purple, maroon, and diffused with blue like a mist. This +is where the fox and song sparrows gather, and the myrtle warblers. +There is a sound of leaf ticking and branches tapping together above +the pouring of the surf. + +Sandy tracks made by beach buggies claw through wide patches of +huckleberry, which have red or bronze leaves and conspicuous red tips +to their branches in the fall, and in other areas the ground is held +by beach grass and sometimes wide mats of shining bearberry, or hog +cranberry, green and purple with bright-red berries under their leaves. +Wide patches and hollows of blown sand are growing with Hudsonia, +“beach heath” or “beach heather,” which is a soft gray green, and has +golden yellow flowers, changing to darkening gold before they die, +flowers, incidentally, which have a faint but sweet scent to them. +Sometimes they are accompanied by “reindeer moss,” that seems to hold +on tenuously, since its gray-green fronds crumble up and blow away, +though in point of fact each of these fragments can lodge again in +some other area. In the grayest of weather this lichen seems almost +luminous, having a sea shine in the rain. + +Piny hollows circle behind this spare vegetation, the trees with +burnt-orange leaders killed by salt spray, and oaks, often dead at +the top, along with a great range of scrub; and until recently when +building was curbed by the National Park, new clumps of cottages and +half-finished roads appearing all the time in new areas. + +The cliff-top landscape is irregular, tilting up and down, dipping back +as a rule toward the west but in varied planes. Just above the beach +its hollows are scoured out by the wind, almost denuded of vegetation, +deep cups with drops below them sheer down to the beach. I have seen +the remnants of house foundations in such hollows, or a creosoted pole +or two sticking up above the surface of the sand, not too old by the +look of them, proving what an ephemeral habitation such a place can be. +Where the low growth holds on, sometimes in masses, like bearberry, or +in patches like the Hudsonia, it too lacks a certain finality, giving +a free, waving look to the surface of things. On the other hand this +vegetation is definite enough. There is no fragility to it. It is +scraggy and tough. The strong shrubby growth may be held down but it +also gives the landscape a symmetry and economy; it does not give the +impression of being hit or miss at all but very definite and sure of +its place, as sure as wind-struck, salt-sprayed plants can be. Each +plant stays rooted from place to place through this sandy earth, being +adapted to intense light, drought, and constant winds, holding on +hard against being scoured out and displaced, and ready also, to move +into new areas. Beach grass, especially, has this ability to move in +on newly deposited sand, or where “blow outs” have occurred, areas in +which the wind has finally blown the sand out from under the plants +formerly rooted there. + +So this patchy, heathlike region is held down in substance, +temporarily, if not in form, adapted to the constant changes made by +the wind. Closer to the cliff’s edge there are likely to be hummocks +or mounds, like those of the dunes. A high hummock may be held down +by beach grass and have a core of bayberry bushes with only an inch +or two of leaves and branches sticking out at the tops. Beach grass, +bayberry, seaside goldenrod live in close if embattled communities, at +least with respect to the wind. These plants and others may all join in +holding such hummocks or mounds together, while the Hudsonia in rounded +clumps holds and extends its grounds across the level sand around them. + +There are two principal species of Hudsonia by the way, ericoides and +tomentosa. Both have been called “poverty grass,” but the name is +usually applied to tomentosa, which is the more common of the two. +They are not always easy to tell apart. The ericoides, sometimes +called golden heather, has tiny spinelike leaves that stand out fairly +distinctly from the stem and each other and it is a plant that stays +green for a much longer time during fall and winter. The tomentosa is +densely tufted, downy, softer in appearance, and it turns gray, or +bluish green, being subject to winter kill more readily than the other +species. On Nantucket at least this plant used to be gathered, dried, +and used for fuel. + +The Hudsonia are “xerophytes,” plants that are adapted to extremely +dry conditions. Their tiny leaves offer a reduced surface in the face +of intense sunlight and therefore do not lose water so readily. A +“succulent” like the seaside goldenrod, on the other hand, has large +fleshy leaves for storing moisture, another adaptation to drought +conditions. This region is no desert. Even the term semidesert has +to be used with caution. Its annual rainfall is the same as the rest +of the Cape, but it is relatively unprotected and lacks the topsoil +needed for the plants and trees not adapted to it to send down roots +fast and deep enough to get moisture. The beach heather, stem-rooted +like the beach grass, probably evolved in an alpine environment, +where conditions were considerably worse than they are on Cape Cod +at present, and moved in to the Cape during the postglacial period, +remaining ever since. + +Still, the unprotected, dry ground is eloquent enough of the assault +made upon it, and the eroding cliffs with the plants that hold down the +ground above them become part of the fierce sweep of time and oceanic +weather. Here is a lesson in exaction. Perhaps those omnipresent Cape +trees, the pitch pines, show the hard effects of a sea-edge environment +more obviously than most. They cannot survive too close to salt water, +but a little farther back the results of wind and salt spray is to kill +their leaders on the windward side, dwarf them so that they grow flat +on the ground like the Hudsonia, or to tie them in knots. + +[Illustration] + +Everything has its method of survival. Each gradation of the ground, +each hollow, slope, or level area, has a life to fit it or to visit +it. The plants move forward seeking water. The birds fly through the +thickets hunting seeds or insects. The exaction lies in a frame of +reference. There is a quality of trial by the seashore, of odds, which +taken care of by a mere plant, seem no less formidable. Their success +in coping with the situation within its limits and precise needs is +allied to all life’s insistence on success. + +We put great emphasis on the flowering parts of a plant, and certainly +the golden, summer-yellow of the Hudsonia, growing in bunches like +bouquets, is rare and beautiful over the bare ground with the blue sea +stretching beyond; but this plant is also rare in its restraint. Its +tuftlike branches, its leaves, spiny scalelike or coarse textured as +they may be, have a beauty, a resourcefulness which is the end result +of ages past human knowledge of them. They are a successful experiment +in creation, artfully finished and well related to the world. + + + + + XII + + The Depths of Sight + + +Where is that eye to the sea beach and the sea that I might enter, +to follow further than I know? There are so many unfinished depths +suggested by the surface of things. A wet, white and gray pebble of +quartz has the kind of grain that leads off to snow and rain and all +the watery and windy associations of earth history. A feather, fitted, +barbuled, light and strong, holding the air, refracting the rays of +the sun and using them for its colors, has the horizon’s curve and +the graces of the sky. The bryozoans on the seaweed tell a deep and +primitive tale about the salt water and its animation. We should not be +so impressed by our powers of assessment as to take things merely at +their face value. To see more than the outside shell of the landscape I +suppose we should be ready to admit its depths and whatever takes part +in them, admitting also, that we are limited in our own capacity. + +It is not necessarily what I see as I walk the beach that might make +sense to the world but what sees me, even though it can’t write a book +or drive a car. In the eyes of birds for example is a special kind of +closeness to truths of nature which we might only see through a glass. +Their very distance from us seems to prove it. Look at a herring gull +and you see an animal with less intelligence than a goat, but with +the same ungiving topaz eyes. I kept a female brown thrasher once +for a week or two and there was nothing her sharp yellow gaze had +for me but a constant glare, perhaps nervous or agitated but not to +be deciphered otherwise. Consider the eyes of an alligator. They are +not even revealing enough to be called “enigmatic,” which might be a +misleading word in any case, implying some half-human wisdom like a +sphinx. Its eyes are mere sunlight openings, cracks, and crevices. Its +lids are turrets, drawn down on a bit of nameless colored water. Other +animals, other societies, receive natural messages in ways that may +have no more excitement in them than the reflection of a cloud passing +across the surface of a pond, and still they may know what we do not, +and the place they live in and respond to is our envy to discover. The +strict, close relationships in the world of life, the life of earth, +result in sensitivities which are no less rare for being divorced from +self-knowledge. + +That scavenger the herring gull may be just as lazy as it looks. Human +civilization has done nicely by it. It can live off the “produce” of +our dumps during the wintertime, when it would otherwise have to work +for a living. When a gull is standing around on the beach looking as +if it were doing nothing, and we ask why, imagining the same specific +purposes we think we ourselves pursue, we might be disappointed. As +likely as not, the gull is doing just that, nothing, and will fly off +at some stimulus--hunger, another gull, a plane, a man, or a shadow. +And yet it is the bird’s association with the seashore, its response +to the currents of the air, to changes in tides and weather, to the +sun’s appearance at dawn and the departing light of evening, that lies +in its own sight. It is just possible that you cannot exaggerate the +effect of light on the physiology and actions of a bird. At least it +seems to be of primary importance in the cycles of migration. So in a +herring gull’s cold eye is a receptiveness not so much qualified by +intelligence or the lack of it, but inextricably, directly connected +with the world of light. When birds and animals react to me, and why +leave out any man or child, even if it is only in answer to an “escape +mechanism,” I see a vision unexplored. + +One morning several hundred gulls, herring and blackback, were +congregated far below and ahead of me as I walked along the cliff. As +soon as I appeared on the edge, casting a shadow over the beach, they +took wing, even though I was at least a quarter of a mile away, and +they rose in one heavy flock and beat slowly away down the sands and +the surf line. + +Not long afterwards I saw an Atlantic, or red-throated, loon swimming +just offshore, tall necked, its head looking off and alert as though +the bird, like a pilot in his house or a watcher at the masthead, was +on a constant lookout. When it saw me it glanced wildly and ducked head +first, over and down, slipping under the water. + +On the same day, a few miles further along, I saw two harbor seals of +good size, swimming twenty or thirty feet outside the beach. First +one dark head appeared above the water and then as I watched through +field glasses from the cliff top two big dark eyes suddenly looked up +at me, and the seal dove, followed by another one a few yards behind. +The two swam through green rolling waters parallel to the beach, coming +up every half minute or so, their swimming forms like shadows slipping +through the sea. The harbor seals, though intelligent and appealing +animals, have suffered great persecution by man and are much less +numerous in Cape waters than they used to be, so that the sight of +these two large specimens at home and roaming along the shore was a +great pleasure to me, and above all I enjoyed having made some contact +with them, as I did with the birds--the mutual life touched on, an +electric communication made between one far pole and another. + +Sight in our sense of the term involves symbols in a very special way, +but it is part of a universal trial of knowing and reception, and in +animals without consciousness and means of assessment this may mean +more than automatic reaction to light. I think of a crowd of newly +hatched minnows like tiny slivers of glass, running up and quivering +through the water. The most definite thing about them is their large +black eyes, contrasted with a bodily transparency so fragile as to +seem past fragility, an artifice of growth on balance, in a chain of +universal actions that might have their matrix in a dream. Those large +eyes are the eyes of first attainment. Sight is the expression of an +alliance with the world in lives twitching and quivering toward mutual +attachment and effect. It may be the gift of misery or adoration in a +man. It is the opening of gates in a child or an animal new to life. + +Perhaps when you look at, if not in to, a fish’s eyes you are looking +at depths of water, an animate fluidity. In its senses there is a +watery knowledge with a supremacy of its own. What a lightning and at +the same time a listlessness there is in them, in their hurrying ways +through currents of fluid light, and their suspension in its stillness! +Many of them only last for a day or a few minutes before disappearing +as a food for other animals, in the mercurial depths of water allied +with life, this intoxicant, this terror. + +My sight meeting that of a gull or seal crosses and contains this +landscape, environment, or place of existence with its own eye and its +own depth to find. The expression of water, sand, and sky leads vision +beyond itself. + +One quiet, moderately cold night when the mist hung so low over +the water and beach that they were closed in, but at the same time +illuminated by the moon, I saw the port and starboard light of a +fishing boat that looked to be only a hundred yards or so away down the +shore. I kept walking toward them with the illusion that the boat was +moored close to the beach, but after a couple of miles the lights were +still receding and I turned back. The tide was close in and sheets +of foam pitched in and dragged back with a sound of rattling stones +but in gentle rhythm. It was a quiet sea, and beyond the surf I could +detect little strikes of light, the curling over and stirring of white +and silver. Up through mists and wisps of cloud the moon appeared +intermittently, riding above the water. The beach was covered with +soft airs, its distances diffused in gray and pink and pearl, a mood +of ambiguity. I felt that whatever I might hear or meet up with was +out of my control, at the dispensation of the world in and beyond the +atmosphere, having unknown connections light years away and joined with +fish and moon and speeding globe. In this isolation, a familiar place +turned inexact and mysterious, I felt I might sense all sorts of far +nerve ends tingling out of the night behind the mist. We receive very +little of what reaches us out of this tribal universe, whose messages +light through us unseen and unheard until we, as individuals, are +turned to the dust of the sky. + +Night or day, the sea and sea beach offer their changing spaces of +light. One afternoon in January, halfway between hours of warmth +and hours of cold, rain and snow, morning and evening, the sea off +Nauset was racing green, spray tossing off the tops of the waves that +simultaneously paused, curved up, and broke down in thunder. The whole +sky was full of cloud featherings borne over before the wind and along +the horizon out to sea were colors of lavender and gray, and pale-green +openings like caves. The wide, steep beach was full of gloss, with +a roll and fire of its own, and above it fringing the edge of the +sandbanks the beach grass curved out and waved. I felt a resonance in +the beach, a tremendously heavy and vibrant tone, the tonnage of sand +and surf in harmony along with a low moan from the sea’s lungs. + +Small flocks of black ducks quivered over the water and then flew in +to Nauset marsh. Then the heavier Canada geese beat in with stalwart +wings, to thin out from their V formation to a long line as they +wheeled in low against the wind and then regathered as they settled +down on the marsh. + +Blackback gulls glided low across the outer line of the surf and +sometimes their shadows appeared on the curving wall of a wave. Herring +gulls soared in the heights and then beat forward on sinewy wings like +flounders pulsing and beating through the water. + +One gull flew down the beach with a ribbed mussel which it had found on +the marsh and dropped it from high in the air. Then the bird retrieved +its food and tried again, taking a chance on whether or not it would +strike some boulders and break, since this is a haphazard and not a +very knowledgeable game with the gulls. They pick up the habit from +each other, by example rather than inheritance. Sometimes it works and +just as often it does not. + +The seaways of soft feldspar green foamed and flew, and the clouds +ran. Thin black strings of seaweed lodged in the sand were waggling +back and forth in the wind. There was a swish of milky surf up the +beach. Over the uncountable numbers of sand grains, each with its own +size, shape, and color was a clean radiance, even a magic. Because in +this realm of wide, majestic use, of continual advent, each offering +was still of a proportion perfect for its moment in time. Each single +action, the silhouette of the straw-colored grasses curving before the +wind, or a gull shadow on a wave, a crystal grain sparkling in the +light, was of such an excellence as to defy category or name. And they +were magic and miracle in their shape and ways of use because they had +life’s inveterate sanction, and that above all else is not subject to +lessening or degradation in this world of nature. + +Like the lights that appear under the mist, or over the open barrens of +the sea at night, like St. Elmo’s fire on the _Pequod_’s mast, there +are electric tricks playing on the horizon, perhaps at all times, +since there seems to be no end to light’s action over the waters with +the sky’s depth behind it. As I walked up the beach there was a radiant +white patch hanging up in the soft, scudding overcast, not in the sun’s +direction--reflected off the water perhaps--but having a wild aura of +its own. It gave me a feeling of communication with something which +had a right to awe. We may have passed the primitive stage, but the +primitive respect for what was beyond human control and the magic used +to propitiate it or bring it to play may still have their sources. The +light and its manifestations is still too quick for the eye, or for the +facts. + +Science itself goes on proving that there is no infinite exactitude +and that many things can only be explained in terms of probability. +The fact that nothing is stopped by our constant search for a simple +solution to life is what keeps science in business. The search into +the nature of cells finds them full of inner whirlings, the motion +of countless component parts, of a universal restlessness. They are +structurally fantastic and each kind is manifestly different. Our +voyage toward the invisible is unending. The molecule or the jellyfish, +seen through one human lens or another, retain their share of the +marvelous. And if we marvel, we are still capable of learning. + +A radiance above me, a changing freshness in the air, between warm and +cold, a shudder of wings over the beach, another language of unexplored +dimensions, life expressions understood in terms of sight and spirit, +and still to be learned--the nonhuman advents that pass the limits of a +man. There is a common realm of action and perception, whose boundaries +we may never reach, where men can be more grateful for their belonging +than their isolation. It is part of the changing state of inanimate +things, the response of lesser forms of life to the construction and +motion of the world that invades them and which they invade, and it is +acted out by the mind. The tidal waves run through us all. To see as +men see and merely to react like a moon snail or a horseshoe crab to +the difference between light and dark are two representative actions in +the same vast realm of response. + +Do men belabor the special nature of consciousness too much, as if it +were some kind of A-1 badge that separated mankind from the rest of +animate creation? Consciousness must be infinitely more mysterious, +more connective, than any attributes we may assign it of personal +distinction. + + + + + XIII + + The Flight of Birds + + +The appearance of migratory birds in fall and spring, or simply their +constant activity, suggests their range. The ability that a gull +displays in the turmoil of the air is enough to bring other winds to +these shores, to make you realize that the beach joins the long shore +line between Cape Cod and Florida, that the waters to the north of us +move on toward Labrador and Baffin Bay. Their wings are allied to the +circulation of the North Atlantic. New England is not so far from the +Arctic Circle, and when the auks, the old squaws, or the buntings come +down to Cape Cod in the autumn they bring the proof with them. + +We have had an appalling record this side of the Atlantic, of +decimating the population of sea birds, which are more vulnerable than +other species because of their nesting habits, on islands or rocky +foreshores. The great auk has gone, and the puffins reduced to small +numbers. If we were able to kill them all off, either on purpose or +through lack of responsibility, what little island people it would make +us! + +The very colors of a murre, or a razor-billed auk, a contrasting black +and white like penguins, suggest the black cliffs and rocky headlands +where they evolved, the white snow and ice, the cast of deep and icy +waters. One June day, when the beach at Race Point was glaring with +light, and all the winter leavings, like the twisted dead stalks of +dusty miller, were being replaced by a freshness in the shine and +scent of things, I saw a dovekie, or little auk, on the beach a few +yards away from the water. It is a very small bird, though conspicuous +enough with its penguinlike stance, its black and white plumage, and +though it was in full view of a number of bathers no one saw it. When +I approached, this seasonal anachronism ran rather than flew away +from me down the sands into the water where it promptly dove out of +sight to bob up out of harm’s way many yards offshore. Since most +dovekies return north in late winter, I supposed it was a “nonbreeding +straggler.” They migrate south in the fall to more temperate waters not +locked in ice like their home feeding grounds. Over a period of years +and at unpredictable times, there are “Dovekie wrecks” when these birds +are blown inland by gale winds and show up in the most unlikely places: +ponds, back yards, side roads, gardens, filling stations or shopping +centers. Since they are not able to take off from land with any ease, +if at all, they are vulnerable to predators of all kinds, provided they +survive exhaustion and starvation. Some years ago I saw a number of +them lying dead for several miles along the Cape Cod highway. + +The dovekies are messengers from the north. The way the gulls use the +wind as it is deflected from the waves, or ride into it, hovering, +then gliding down, is symptomatic of the sailing skill of other birds +that travel far beyond the shore, the aerodynamics of the open sea. +They are masters of the art of air as no plane can ever be. I remember +watching some fulmars in the wake of a ship one wind-tossed day, the +great blue-green waves in rocking fullness shouldered with foam. They +glided between the crests and troughs of the waves with effortless +deliberation, and then lifted, curved away in a wide arc, and returned. +Back and forth, they seemed to tip the waters surface with their wings +and clip the waves, gliding and curving with them, expending no +excess energy at all. I felt them rise on the upward air in my lungs, +my admiration. + +In birds you see pure action personified, an endless spontaneity +reacting to the air, the season, the light, and on clear nights the +constellations that may help them find their way. A flock of red-backed +sandpipers or sanderlings, all spinning, wheeling, and sun-reflecting +at once, have an ecstatic dash, a common brightness set going in them +which must carry them a long way. They are long-distance migrants +flitting from one end of the earth, one shore line to the next, and +judging by their actions it is hard to believe that they could ever +rest. Searching for crustaceans or sand worms along the beach, they +run on flickering black legs, bodies tilted forward, flitting, bobbing +in syncopation. When close to the surf they may fly up briefly when it +piles in and then drop down again when it retreats. With their quick, +automatic run, and heads constantly jerking forward and back they seem +to be endowed with an almost comic gift of hurrying. + +Suddenly, with a sharp piping cry a sanderling flies off the beach and +then disappears like a gray chip over the water, a tide bird faster +than the tides, where there is no following it. This bird is quick and +sweet, and cleans the earth of too much hesitation. + +Of all the birds that visit the beach during fall and winter I take +most delight in the snow buntings. They have such freshness in them, +skimming the cliffs, rushing by like bits of foam. The white in their +plumage is so pure, snow paths between markings of black and cinnamon, +like briers and weed stalks, with suggestions of greenish gray when the +sun shines on them. They are birds of the Arctic tundra, companions +of the musk ox. They fly up suddenly, as they are constantly doing at +the least disturbance, their whiteness dancing up above the beach or +along the faces of the cliffs, and then settle down again, pecking +away, at home in wastes and barren land, the lonely stretches of the +world, these are flowers, snowflakes, foam, fitted to a poverty and its +freedom. + +They are seed eaters like sparrows, and may also eat such tiny +creatures as they find along the beach, and they are always flocking +and scattering out from one rise and level to the next. To me, the +fanciful difference between buntings and sparrows, sanderlings, gulls, +horned larks, and many other visitors to seaside lands is their trait +of invisibility. It is not only their whiteness--they look almost +entirely white seen from underneath, appearing and disappearing like +clouds--and a plumage which belongs to the accents of sunlight, grass +stalks, dune shadows, on the bare ground--but their actions. With a +motion reminiscent of the roller-coaster type of flight which the +goldfinches have, flocks of buntings will pour down onto the cliff top +or beach, spread out and then fly up again, with an inner billowing, +a dipping, and rising as they go. Twittering with a note of tinkling +bells in the high air beside the bowling sea, they swing and then burst +in gentle snow flights across the ground, through one opening, one neat +run, one clean escape to another. They turn the invisible into reality. +They have a continual lift, the agitation inherent in all life. They +fly up ahead of me as sparks out of the unseen rest and center of +things. + +Another bird of the tundra, a specter from the far north which appears +irregularly over the years during wintertime to hunt for rodents and +occasional birds along the coast is the snowy owl. I remember seeing +a mounted specimen when I was a boy and thinking it was the most +desirable thing on earth to own, and since I never did own one, the +snowy owl stayed intangible and magnificent in my mind; and the first +live one I ever saw did nothing to disabuse me of my impression. They +migrate to beaches, salt marshes, and islands along the coast, choosing +elevations as a rule, hummocks, knolls, or dunes from which they can +survey the surrounding countryside during their hunting season, +watching the man or beach buggy arrive as well as evidence of prey. +The one I saw was way down the south end of North Beach, that stretch +of Nauset beach which ends at the straits separating it from Monomoy. +It was perched on a hummock, and at first was nearly indistinguishable +from the top of a white picket fence buried in sand, or the kind of +white marble marker, rounded at the top, which you might see on a +roadside in Vermont. We were driving toward it in a beach buggy and +when it flew off low with big, soft, bowed wings, its feathers, white +and flecked with gray, took on a blue-ash hue from the winter light +and the uneven shadowy land around it. The great owl lighted calmly +on another hummock further on. It stared straight at us out of fierce +yellow eyes, with inscrutable dignity, and when we turned and came at +it from another direction its head almost swiveled all the way around, +looking at us from over its back. It kept its place in center stage. + +Many thousands of eider ducks winter in Cape Cod waters. During +October and November especially they can be seen shuttling back and +forth across the sea beyond the Outer Beach. Some feed, principally +on mussels, in the bay region or off Chatham and along other shallow +shores and inlets, but the majority--an estimated 500,000--spend the +winter over the shoals between Monomoy and Nantucket. Seen close to, +as they fly low over the water, they are as sturdy, clean shaped, and +of good design--the red-brown females, and males patterned in black +and white--as a coastal vessel, a dory, or a skiff. From the beach you +can see them fly over water in single lines, sometimes as much as a +half a mile or more in length, with a steady, throbbing flight, like a +suspended string of beads, alternately white and brown. + +By contrast brant fly in longer, thicker lines, and sometimes show up +like shivering black specks high over the sea. Well into December the +gannets pass by over the sea surfaces too, flying singly for the most +part, their broad white backs and long black-tipped wings reflecting +the sunlight as they turn, to dive in their grand manner down, from +fifty feet or more in the air, hard and bold into the water, sending up +jets of spray. + +Clutching at any aspect of nature is to seize a drop of water in your +hand. Ebb and flow passes the great beach, the eternally wide ebb and +flow of day and night passes the cliff tops, all earth’s shadows wave +across its seas, and yet this is the precise route of the birds, their +direction and their home. They know its guidelines inwardly. For us, +who put so much emphasis on outward instruments, this can be almost +impossible to understand. + +Still, we can exaggerate the division between us. We are all at home +together, however we use the stars and seasons in our separate ways. +Men are as subject to mortality as birds, even though the latter can’t +dwell upon it. They in turn are vulnerable to chance, to disease, +to going astray and meeting with mishaps when confronted by the +freakishness and violence of the weather. Many a duck or sea bird, +caught on a lee shore or in a marshy inlet during a great storm may +be unable to rise into the wind and is exhausted or swept away and +seriously injured while trying. Life and death, joy and disaster, go +wing to wing. Birds have less capacity to deceive themselves than we, +being unable to avoid the perils of nature and at the same time its +protective power. + +I had similar thoughts in mind one day in November during a violent +coastal storm while watching some gulls, ringed-bill and herring, +together with a few shore birds, that were gathered at the head of an +inlet along a relatively sheltered part of the Bay. The Outer Beach +was of a violence that day which could hardly be approached, either on +foot or in contemplation. Even here the storm winds were relentless, +hard and cold, flicking and driving the sands along the shore, whipping +the marsh waters behind it into a froth. Sanderlings made short, low, +flying hops back and forth, but were unable to do their usual free +hurrying and basket-swinging flights along the shore. The gulls stood +in shallow water facing the wind, water that was being whipped and +lashed, and sometimes they would drop down sideways a little before the +wind’s force, thrown slightly off balance, acting like a man who has +been cut across the face. Taking to the air just above the ground they +would find difficulty in maneuvering and were forced back, sometimes +fifty feet or more, to continue standing where they dropped back to the +ground; but even in this they showed a certain supple power, a control +aware of its limits, the sinewy economy of wings lifted in the wind, +the plain sky beauty of feathers gray and white. The storm was ending, +although the water was still being whiplashed into foam. The light was +very cold and the sky line was heaped with sunset fires. + +Surely everything, everywhere, was vulnerable, and yet it was that bird +closeness to such primal powers as might seem to us bitter, alien, and +cruel--the gods of the north, of the waters and the winds--that gave +them an essential balance, a rightful place. That great sky of theirs +was unexplored. It came down to me that regardless of what he learns, +there is so much for a man to go on asking. + +What can birds tell you, other than displaying those traits of +aggression, or fear, or mutual attraction, which we may recognize +when observing their behavior? We have a little fear in ourselves, +when looking on, that we may go too far in mixing up our own traits +and terms with theirs; but each will manage to keep his territory, +untransgressed by the other, and each takes part in the high order of +nature. Watching the birds, I have seen ceremony, ritual, love-making, +display, all worthy of admiration by the most glittering of human +cultures. The speech of men and the speech of birds do not divide us +altogether. In silence is unity. + +Perhaps the most eloquent thing about birds is that which we will +probably never learn to decipher. In his study of puffins, R. M. +Lockeley refers to their “subtle, silent-gesture language.” That +language is part of a still more silent order, the dark realm of +existence where all their actions and necessities have their play. +Approach with patience and with care. + +One day I had walked for several miles along the cliffs toward Eastham, +through thickets of scrub oak, and bayberry that smelled very pungently +in the fall of the year. The sky was full of shifting winds and the day +as I walked full of weather changes, from an edge of cold to warmth +and back again. An early sun began to be covered by pale-gray clouds +and there was a mauve light over the sea. I caught sight of a little +wren along the way, and there was a number of sparrows, both seen and +heard--song, chipping, seaside, and probably others. It was a low, +shifting thicket world full of potential surprise, bordered by oceanic +sound, rocking with light and air. + +I retraced my steps a few hours later over a narrow sandy road, at +times no more than a track, and I saw a pigeon hawk flying off ahead +of me, stroking deliberately and quickly with its long wings. Then I +noticed another one roosting on a broken-off tree several hundred feet +back of the cliff just outside a wood of pitch pines. The first one +made off in that direction too, roosting not far from its companion on +a dead stump, and they both stayed absolutely still, like falcons on +an Egyptian frieze. I could hear a blue jay screaming somewhere in the +background. + +I noticed feathers scattered on the path, gray and blue, blowing ahead +of me; and then, there it was, a blue jay freshly killed, its breast +bare of feathers and shining red like some rock wet with sea splash +in the crimson path of the setting sun. What kind of a game led up to +this? Could the two hawks, one tempting the jay by its distance, the +other scaring it by its proximity, have managed to send it out into the +open where it had no chance against their swift and effortless pursuit? +I walked ahead for a short distance and then waited, watching through +field glasses for the hawks to come back. The nearest one did, after a +few minutes, beating down tentatively over the kill, then rising again +and leaving with its supple flight. The other had moved a little closer +and roosted on an abandoned telephone pole, full of an ancient poise, +wonderfully still. After that, I am sure, they never went back to the +road until I had gone for good. The grace and tension, the space in +that formal scene stayed with me for a long time. + + + + + XIV + + The Marsh + + +The Outer Beach is broken only at Nauset Inlet, where the tidal waters +pour through an opening that has frequently changed its width and +position, and at Chatham. The Chatham break leads in to the wide area +of Chatham Harbor and Pleasant Bay. In both places, but more especially +at Nauset, where the marshes and the inland shore behind them are +protected by the beach and a sandspit some two and three-quarter +miles in length, an unstable, but at the same time fairly constant +equilibrium is attained between sea and land. It does not seem obvious +that this should be so at all. The sandspit looks only too narrow and +fragile, and at intervals it does show evidence that the sea has broken +through. Driftwood logs lie on the cuts made between its hummocks, +headed as they were when the sea subsided, after it had lifted them in +toward the marsh. + +Except for the great volume of the beach itself, which is maintained +in collaboration with the forces of the sea, it is hard at first to +understand why the marsh should not be inundated. Why does that lord +the sea not heave in and overwhelm this sandy barrier, flooding over +the marshy flats and islands, and wash up permanently against the +inland shore? + +The shoulders of the low cedar-studded land slope down to the edge +of the marsh with a neat, trimmed look and neat houses, seemingly +confident of being in residence indefinitely, although I have heard +people who live there talking in ways that suggested they were not +sure of it. Once see those stormy waters heaving and rushing over the +sandspit and you cannot be sure of anything. Looking out at the sea, +even from a fairly safe distance, you can find eternal balance and +at the same time inundation and disaster. Now that the Outer Beach +stretches past the miles of cliffs and is no longer backed up by them, +becoming an outlying stretch of sand, its own “protective” power +might seem much less clear. On the other hand, when was this beach in +anything but a state of flux and change? There is protection in that, +even if it is hard to define. The fact is that the relationship between +the sea, the beach, and the sandspit, the marsh and inland shore, has +been maintained for ages in the past and probably ages to come. In +general the volume of sand that is packed along the shore balances what +is removed from it, but only in general, for the time being, because +erosion takes place consistently over the years and during its course +more sand is removed than delivered. Also a standing equilibrium +is kept between this deposition and taking away of sand and the +conditions offshore: the currents, drift, wave height and direction, +the changing shoals and bars. All these states and forces are involved +in an extremely complex kind of order, and it is certainly broken +and rearranged all the time. A season may show it, or the records of +history. In fact, changes occur from day to day. + +When the young explorer Champlain visited the Cape in 1605 he sailed +into Nauset Harbor, and at that time, judging by old records, the inlet +was about halfway down the sandspit behind the beach. Since then it +apparently has moved about a mile south, but its entrances have changed +now and then, with long periods of relative stability in between, which +might be broken at any time and then followed by some new arrangement +of forces. + +In his _Birds of Massachusetts and Other New England States_, +Edward Howe Forbush pointed out that this long protective spit, or +“beach ridge” extending from Nauset to Monomoy had been pushed back +a considerable distance, perhaps a mile, since the early seventeenth +century. It used to lie far to the eastward, judging by early charts, +of where it is now, and took the form of a long narrow island some +twelve miles in length “with several small islands north of it and +outlets to the ocean at either end--the northern one at Eastham and +the southern lying between the end of this beach ridge and the Chatham +shore.” + +“In 1854 during the great storm that wrecked the lighthouse on Minot’s +Ledge, the sea broke through the barrier into Orleans water at Nauset, +and afterwards much of Nauset Harbor near the entrance filled partially +with shifting sands.” + +The recent Woods Hole beach studies report that: “The spits literally +broke into pieces and the inlet itself became quite complex in 1957. +Nauset Inlet has done this before. A study of coastal charts shows that +Nauset Inlet opened hard against the cliffs on the south side from +1856 (the first good chart available to us) until 1940. Charts of 1941 +show that in a single year a spit grew from south to north against the +littoral drift and shifted the inlet a mile to the north.” + +For some length of time, the storms of 1956 and 1957 resulted in two +entrances along the spit, one of which closed up subsequently. Other +temporary break-throughs can be seen along the spit, varying from 150 +feet to a few yards across, extending down its length until it joins +a broad, high stretch--almost a long mount--of sand which ends at the +present inlet, with North Beach on the other side. This sand is subject +to storm flooding and to winds, to being removed and added to, recut +and carved by the waves, and except on the marsh edge of it, beach +grass is not able to gain a foothold. In recent years four or five +hundred pairs of terns have nested there, and are protected. + +The volume of this sand is immense. It shelves down steeply toward +the water where it becomes part of the beach; and where the channel of +the inlet curves in, the ends of the beach on both sides keep changing +their lengths and relative position. The sea builds high shoals off and +around the incoming tidal channel during one season and it may level at +least parts of them off in another. During the summer of 1962 the ribs +and bottom of a boat at least thirty feet long was revealed on one bank +of the inlet at its mouth, and could be seen for months; but by the +winter of 1962-63 it had completely disappeared. A sandbank lay over it +which was at least five or six feet higher than sea level. + +Aerial photographs taken when the spit broke up in 1957, and afterwards +in 1958, show a very elaborate and confusing pattern. Shoals and +separate spits began to drift, to join and separate, shift and +intermingle in curling, curving folds, an interwaving and repositioning +of sand materials that would seem to have no parallel in nature. + +The Nauset Inlet is being driven into the marsh behind it at an average +rate of about 2.8 feet a year, except in years of extreme erosion. +This figure is about the same as that of the cliffs, and on the whole +it is probably somewhat less here than there, although the marsh area +is being very gradually diminished in extent. Its wide channels and +bays, its marshy edges, islands, and flats, are held in the balance of +great forces sweeping along the shore, or occasionally breaking through +in violence. Although it absorbs and releases the tidal waters with +ancient calm, it seems wide out, subject to the sea and a part of the +complex, barely understood forces that build and break along the shore. + +The marsh is a refuge for ducks and geese, and gunners for centuries +have waited there for the “whistlers,” or goldeneyes, and the black +ducks to whir, swing in, and careen overhead under the wide light of +dawn while the cold wind ruffled the open water and stirred the matted +grass. Like the tides that flood in and fall, like the marsh grasses +that grow and wave, then die down and take on their matted winter +look, or the marine animals that swim in through the tidal channel and +go out again to sea, it is a place of flight and motion. The local +animals, crabs, clams, mussels, snails, the salt-water minnows in the +ditches, the marsh snails, and numerous others, must go through their +cycles of growth and death and decay here, the building of interlife +relationships, but the over-all feeling that I have had about the +marsh is a certain bare economy, as though it was more obligated to +migrant forces, to flooding in and flooding out, then to any enclosed +stability of its own. In a way it has the wide, flat isolated look of +the more sheltered and extensive marshes on the Bay shore, but it is an +isolation bound to the open waters of the sea which run through it and +sometimes threaten its borders. + +After their green summer and early golden fall, the marsh plants and +grasses darken. In November the marshes are still russet, umber, and +yellow green, but by January they are dark brown with reddish tawny +tones in matted grasses having the coarse texture of a deer’s coat. +The saltwort plants, so fresh and green and full of salt juices in the +summer, have turned dry and white, curled over at their tips so that +they have the look of singed wool. + +When you walk behind the sandspit the marsh flats seem to stretch far +off toward the shore and the channels between them are partly hidden. +Nauset from the landward side, on the other hand, looks as if it were +mostly composed of water, especially at high tide. It is both a good +country for low-grass lovers like sparrows and those that ride its +watery lanes and lakes like ducks and geese. + +Low-flying, drab little seaside sparrows fly up off the grass for +short distances and then disappear again. Occasionally I have flushed +a meadowlark that planed up over the marsh. Horned larks peck in the +dunes, tripping forward with a stamping motion of their legs, and then +stop, to stand with a backward slant to their bodies. They fly up +suddenly with shrill lisping cries; and all the while the deep quacking +of black ducks sounds from far out in the middle of the marsh. There +are always gulls, far or near, with their slow gliders’ fall and rise +on the wind. The great blackbacks fly heavily overhead, sometimes +wheeling in circles over the inlet with a muted baying, or hoarse, +guttural calls; and with their necks and heads stretched way out and +their wide-spread wings they might be mistaken for gannets. + +Red-breasted mergansers come in from the sea with their thin heads and +bills straight forward so that in flight they become throbbing arrows +sent from a bow. One evening I stood in the hummocks of the spit facing +the marsh while flock after flock of Canada geese flew in overhead, +bugling as they came, close enough so that I could hear the fine high +whistling of their wings, and even a rattle and rasp of air through +their feathers. Low-flying planes often start them up as they feed in +the marsh, along with the wary black ducks, whose cloudlike flocks +stray back and forth for a while before they settle down again. A black +duck’s wings show white underneath and they seem to spin as it flies up +high and fast and changes direction, like a weathervane. + +Quivering, soaring, swinging flights set out over the wide marsh, and +the bird fleets ride the waters. The goldeneyes follow one another +bobbing along in a channel, along with mergansers and occasional +buffleheads, whose white heads or sides suddenly shine out as they +round a corner. A rush and glide of water shows brightly in the +distance when an eider plows quickly forward. The Canada geese feed +over the marsh or on the borders of its channels and ditches, honking +low, the sentinel ganders with their proud heads and necks showing +above the grassy levels around them. One afternoon when I was walking +across the coarse cover of the marsh--which seemed to stretch far off +like the pampas, with its indefinite sky and a wide-spread travel of +birds--I caught sight of a deer running up behind me, some fifty yards +away. It was a doe, with a dun-colored winter coat; and seeing me, she +swerved suddenly and headed out toward the middle of the marsh. The +waters of January are bitterly cold, but the doe swam a wide channel +to get to a small island in the middle, and there she stayed, shaking +and scratching now and then, stirring around in an area that became +more and more circumscribed as the tide began to rise and the waters +widened. I left her a couple of hours later in the gathering dusk, a +dark, distant little figure, hunched up far out on the marsh. Deer can +swim for several miles, even in icy waters, so she undoubtedly swam +back after I was safely out of the way, perhaps after dark when the +tide started to go down again. Still, I was troubled by what I had +caused, and I came back early next morning to reassure myself that she +was gone. + +When night comes on, the dark flat marsh has a look of absolute +secrecy. The cold winter wind completes its isolation. A few last birds +may fly up over it, or twist and cry in the wind and then drop down and +disappear. What quick movements, starts, flicking actions, what flight +there may be left is at last hidden, downed completely, and the wind +and surf sounds wash out all else. + +There is secrecy and at the same time a desolation in the marsh, +the desolation of life pared down to absolute essentials. It offers +no luxury but motion in its tidal context, an absolute minimum of +redundance. It is a spare unity, even with all its life and light, and +the colors that play over it throughout the years, a whole which only +accepts those parts which are necessary to it. This marsh is on its +own, with ancient standards of simplicity. To find fulfillment in them +would be luxury indeed. The lights begin to go on in the houses that +stand over its inner shore, as evening advances. A plane drones in the +sky. The marsh’s flat, wind-blown darkness is alone, and seems to say +that all life is received by those bare standards, that we are all +helplessly interdependent and obligated to tides that none of us can +turn. + + + + + XV + + The Uses of Light + + +In the face of what it offers, I have said very little about the great +beach. In some respects it is indefinable even as a geographical +entity, in spite of the fact that it represents a range of sandy +shore line that extends for thousands of miles to the south of it. It +fluctuates so, and it is so closely associated with the sea in that +respect, that the term “transition zone,” while generally appropriate, +seems a little misleading. It is made of land materials but it is +not exactly a land boundary. Cape Cod, whose Outer Shore it defines, +is as narrow and exposed as a spit or shoal by comparison with the +continent behind it. In any case, the beach in its grand exposure, its +instability, seems closer to the sea than land, and that may be the +reason why many visitors, bound to the inland world of human claims, +have often expressed the feeling that it looks untouched. + +Small white waves on the sea surfaces beyond the beach may scud like +birds while surf and sand are resplendent in green and silver; or an +evening wind from the north blows over sandbanks and beach grasses, +coming on in hesitant rushes, the gray waters conflicting over +shark-gray shoals, and clouds standing off over the sea. Sometimes the +surf strikes and hisses like snakes curling along the sand. Sometimes +it rises up with green-marbled surfaces, roaring and falling with +ponderous formality. Beach and sea are always involved in mutual storms +and plays of light, mutual readjustments beyond our control. + +The beach is naked, malleable, ready to move and be moved. It is +invested with the vast balance of the oceanic tides. It is part of the +systems of wind and weather. It is a receiving ground for light. For +these and countless other reasons it is a power, with an expression +made up of all its communicant and communicating energies, their +substance, and formality. It sweeps on in a long curving line that +is a definition not only of a bound but a horizon, a sea, and a sky. +It expresses growth and the stunting of growth, destruction and its +holding back, the violent storm, the offshore summer swell, the heat +and cold. Many languages, heard or unheard by human ears are in it, and +much that is unknown to us. Its long roving ways invite a man to the +space in which life is shaped and perpetuated, invite him, in a sense, +to where he is unable to go, where nothing is promised; but it is human +perception and realization that it brings out, not security, a man’s +coming at the size of the natural realm with its unceasing winds, where +the birds fly in with a grace and concordance that he will find he +knows, by virtue of a primal inheritance. + +Life has particular, even narrow, definitions, like those distinct +levels of the beach to which different species are adapted. Plants and +animals that live in the sand, on the cliff tops, or on the ocean floor +beyond the surf, have been responding in the same way for millions of +years. All this is well known to natural science. In fact, to make too +many ignorant and loose generalities about it is probably an offense +to the circumstances; but together with precise conditions goes a vast +scope, a space, and a speed like the overworld racing of the ocean +tide. The beach and its sands, the waves that cut them away or build +them up, its long roaming, and its give and take with respect to the +sea, involves a balance that cannot be separated from the globe itself, +with an age and a future where time is nearly lost. Seaweed, crabs, +shells, fish, or birds are all ancient, exact, and well defined. (It +may take hundreds of thousands of years to change the shape of a head +or a claw.) They are also part of a motion which is not changed into +a machine by being called perpetual. In any case, each form, through +the countless passages of light and dark, was endowed with a joyful +resistance to finality. + +Within the shifting landscape of the sea beach all action, each +affinity, and each response, seems controlled and at the same time +free and exemplary. The elements agree in making the junctures of +light unparalleled. Here are the eternal crossways of tides, wind, and +sunlight, full of an indefinite potentiality that comes more clear to +human eyes because of their lack of obstruction. I think of one area +in particular which combines this wide range of view with conflict and +meeting more than most. Where the great beach has its last break at +Chatham, before the long sandy island, or sandspit, of Monomoy, the +tide races through and behind it into Chatham Harbor, and toward the +west it flows between Morris Island and Monomoy into Nantucket Sound. +There is so much intermingling of currents and tides, so many effects +of sky light and clouds and direct sunlight spreading over this area, +together with sea smells and varying winds, as to give it an effect of +constant remaking and realliance. From the Morris Island shore the surf +shows up in the distance above the long low barrier of the Outer Beach +like a mirage of waves and when the north wind flings back spray on +their crests they might be great dolphins plunging forward through the +sea. The cloud masses shift and change, tall in the spring or autumn +sky, over sand and long stretches of green and blue water. + +Morris Island’s sandy, wind-punished shores are full of dead oak and +pine, the oak still standing in many places stripped of its bark, +a slick stonelike gray, and the ground is covered with a tangle of +thickets and beach-grass perimeters all leading to a rim of salt-marsh +grasses that joins with sandbars and tidal flats beyond. Through spring +and summer and during the early fall when the shore birds have not yet +migrated, shoals and bars and flats are covered at low or half tide +not only with shifting light over shallow waters but a silvery crying. +Wind, foghorns, gulls screaming, shore birds piping, sometimes the +faint or bell-like notes of inland birds, planes, perhaps an occasional +ship’s bell heard or imagined, all sound through the seasons. + +During the winter the channels provide some shelter and feeding grounds +for ducks and of course the gulls station themselves here and fly up at +all times. This point where the tides turn a corner is a contrast in +force and influence. There is the rolling and tossing of the open ocean +not far away; local waters are agitated by the wind, colored by sun and +sky, and always running in or out along the shore; there is a tidal rip +in one area where currents meet; a great rushing tidal stream at one +place, calm, easing waters in another. Within the framework of tides +and storms water changes the shape and volume of the sand as it does +along the Outer Shore. There is a holding, a circling as the Atlantic +waters meet and turn. The earth seems to toss with all their rhythmic +interplay. Flying or flying sounds are in the hands of oceanic light +and surprise. There is a special tension in things that responds to a +great order and sway. + +Whatever animals come here to subsist, or migrate through, have an +alliance with this energy, a tidal intensity of their own, taking part +in all the contrasts and conflicts of the environment. During the late +spring for example, you walk from a relative silence on the Morris +Island shore to wide breath and sound a hundred yards away. When the +birds are nesting leafy tangles and trees collaborate with them in +their concealment. Singing has died down. There are only occasional +calls from small birds half-hidden in the leaves, flying from one +protected spot to another, and now and then the nestlings make squeaky +or rasping little cries in the demands of hunger, but just beyond them +the sky is open and bright with action, and there is no need to hide. + +In spring and summer the terns are in constant bright evidence over the +open water and the sands. The woodpeckers and the sparrows stay with +trees or grasses; the terns are birds of the ocean airs and long white +shores, their complement and grace. Thousands of terns nest at Tern +Island, on the shore of Chatham Harbor, and through the summer months +and early fall there are always a great many off Morris Island and +Monomoy, diving for fish. They are sharply made, lithe fliers with a +nervous excitability that is peculiar to them. Flocks will hover over a +stretch of tidal water where schools of small fish are running and they +will fairly batter the water, making a loud sound like paddle wheels +as they cover it with points of spray. Hundreds, crying harshly, hover +some five or six feet up, dropping and rising continually. Many of them +dip forward with wings folded slightly, but others, a little higher +up, make steeper dives, hovering against the wind, their wings beating +hard, to drop, twisting slightly, and then dive with wings back and +head down, sharply and precisely. I have thought that terns seldom miss +when they have a fish in sight, but during this kind of mass fishing, +particularly when they dip forward as if to pick the fish up and try +again, it does look like a matter of trial and error. Also, depending +on the season, there may be a number of immature birds in the flock +that are not as skillful as their elders. + +The terns are expert performers in every way. They are small and light +with strong, angled wings that can carry them over thousands of miles. +They have range, persistence, a bright balance that carries them +through the mighty and punishing wilderness in which they live. At the +same time, that lovely harsh crying excellence in the form of a tern is +fragile, even ephemeral. Terns, in the early period of their lives at +least, are expendable, like fish. Common terns especially have large +breeding colonies that are extremely vulnerable to human encroachment +as well as rats, cats, dogs, skunks, and other marauders, and they +definitely need protection. Their existence as a race is hazardous +under the best of conditions. The sandy islands or peninsulas which +they use for nesting sites may be flooded by storm tides in the spring, +destroying thousands of eggs or young birds. An adult tern might live +to between fifteen and twenty years of age, although their annual +mortality is 23 per cent, and their chance of reaching adulthood is +fairly slim, tern mortality in the first year being about 92 per cent. + +The hard statistics make short lives of many species, while the sun and +sea keep their steady and infinite relationship. There is a quality +of sacrifice in all life. Nothing is spared in its duration, and at +the same time in the uniqueness of its making, as the fires burn. The +results of evolution may seem haphazard in many respects, and the +processes of nature to involve enormous waste; but natural continuity +holds all things in high honor, through the fine balances of life and +death. The forms of fish or tern, with their own transmutations of +energy, are as excellent as they are perishable. + +The tides run the channels with an almost sentient, purling calm during +the burning days of summer and early fall. They lift into marshy shores +and over sandy flats, and then subside. Sometimes the fog comes on in +the afternoon and the deep foghorn groans through sheets of silver +under the wind, a low curtain moving on and parting slightly here and +there, the sunlight showing intermittently. Tiny black snails move over +the flats at low tide, some absolutely still, others moving slightly +with black antennae protruding and their feet probing forward. Small +fish dart in the pools and hover in the tidal currents. There is an +over-all mewing, chuckling, and crying, with an occasional “huh, huh” +from a gull flying slowly overhead, as the light shifts with the breath +of wind over water. + +Gray and white ring-billed and herring gulls, occasional laughing gulls +with black heads and red legs, and terns, preen, stalk, stand off in +the distance, and fly up intermittently. Ringed plovers run hurriedly +forward over the sands and through the shallows. A yellowlegs, tall +and limber, stalks, bobs, and probes along an edge of the shore. +Black-bellied plovers, big-headed, short-billed, stocky by comparison, +trot through the waters, standing up straight at intervals, while the +yellowlegs suddenly races back and forth on its hunt for food, turning +back on its shadow. These shore birds fly off fast when disturbed, +crying out, the black-bellied plover with a sweet whistle of its own. + +Gentle rising and falling of the tide over ribs of sand; swirling fogs; +burning sun with spokes slanting down through clouds over the rim of +the world, letting in calm soft lights, green and pink and pearly +across sand and rivulets and pools, or cruelly glittering diamonds over +the water. Light and water and wings flow in and flow past, the motion +of ages, all actions being synchronized, as the hovering and diving +of the tern is synchronized with the fish it catches, part of the +indefinite combinations of things in a universe of motion. Over these +waters and receptive sands life crawls or flies, dives, halts, stops, +and starts, wildly, with quick hearts beating, or scarcely a heart at +all, blind, or vibrant with sight, probing with accuracy and speed or +merely moving at random. + +They are all elements in a great exchange--this ardor and play of one +instant in time, an instant that is equal in importance to all others. +I stand here at the apex of one day. Here out of a thousand years is +another advent, another chance for action, another use for sight, in +the beautiful agreement of all contrary, separate, and divided things. + +I remember one evening at Morris Island in the latter part of August, +with the day beginning to fall and the surf’s dull roar sounding from +the sands of the great beach, a beach behind me, still beyond me, +still in a sense not walked. The tide started to ebb, flicking lightly +against the shore, lapsing with the evening as if the sea had an easy +courtesy of its own, and with the smoky sunset low on the western sky, +the waters moved out over gray sands. There was a perfect symmetry to +the evening. Terns flew over, light, airy, floating with a swallow’s +beat, but deep, sure, and strong. Little sanderlings and red-backed +sandpipers, half-seen in the dusk, ran through reflections in the +shallow waters at the edge of the tide, part of its coolness and flow, +the little waves in banked rows rippling. The birds tripped forward and +dipped to the mirrored salmon, copper and crystal in these waters, in +a communication. The terns trilled harshly and sometimes their bodies +trembled as they beat up against the light wind and changed position. +A single herring gull stood still on a hummock at the tide’s edge like +an Indian in a ritualistic acceptance of darkness coming on. The order +of change and constancy began to take light’s fire and warmth and its +colors away, in the graduated motion of the sky, along with all flying +elements like the terns, like thought, and the unimagined combinations +of being. The wavelets edged out. The sanderlings started to flit off +and disappear. Finally there was no turning back the authority of night. + +[Illustration] + + + + + Transcriber’s Notes + + Perceived typographical errors have been silently corrected. + + Illustrations have been moved nearer to the text to which they refer. + + Variations in hyphenation and compound words have been preserved. + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75895 *** |