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Sketches: By the Sea
by Samuel Menashe

1.
That black man running
Headlong on the beach
Throws back the white
Soles of this feet
Lighting strikes
Twice on the sand
Left foot and right,
My pen in hand

2.
Hearing the sea
Not seeing it
On the other side
Of the dunes
Is enough for me
This morning
The distance I keep
From the sea I hear
Brings distance near

3.
At night, off shore
Sometimes the lights
On the fishing boats
Sink out of sight
That string of lights
Salt water wets
Makes the fish rise
To tridents and nets

from New and Selected Poems, Expanded Edition
(Library of America, 2008)

The Stones
by Wendell Berry

I owned a slope full of stones.
Like buried pianos they lay in the ground,
shards of old sea-ledges, stumbling blocks
where the earth caught and kept them
dark, an old music mute in them
that my head keeps now I have dug them out.
I broke them where they slugged in their dark
cells, and lifted them up in pieces.
As I piled them in the light
I began their music. I head their old lime
rouse in breath of song that has not left me.
I gave pain and weariness to their bearing out.
What bond have I made with the earth,
having worn myself against it? It is a fatal singing
I have carried with me out of that day.
The stones have given me music
that figures me for their holes in the earth
and their long lying in them dark.
They have taught me the weariness that loves the ground,
and I must prepare a fitting silence.

from Collected Poems, 1957–1982
(North Point Press/FSG, 1984)

Did I Miss Anything?
by Tom Wayman

Nothing. When we realized you weren’t here
we sat with our hands folded on our desks
in silence, for the full two hours

Everything. I gave an exam worth
40 percent of the grade for this term
and assigned some reading due today
on which I’m about to hand out a quiz
worth 50 percent

Nothing. None of the content of this course
has value or meaning
Take as many days off as you like:
any activities we undertake as a class
I assure you will not matter either to you or me
and are without purpose

Everything. A few minutes after we began last time
a shaft of light suddenly descended and an angel
or other heavenly being appeared
and revealed to us what each woman or man must do
to attain divine wisdom in this life and
the hereafter
This is the last time the class will meet
before we disperse to bring the good news to all people on earth

Nothing. When you are not present
how could something significant occur?

Everything. Contained in this classroom
is a microcosm of human experience
assembled for you to query and examine and ponder
This is not the only place such an opportunity has been gathered

but it was one place

And you weren’t here

from Did I Miss Anything? Selected Poems 1973–1993
(Harbour Publishing, 1993)