ELIZABETH BISHOP'S BIRTHDAY, 2/8/1911

THE HOUSE ON THE BEACH (for E. B.)


In the house on the pilings
A woman lives alone.
Days and nights she gazes
Upon lion-colored sands
Remembering other houses,
Other places, dear ones gone.
She spends her time
Among her books--boring ones--
And souvenirs: a wasps' nest,
Mollusk shells, kite-string,
A large bad painting
Of a familiar scene, random
Copies of National Geographic,
Histories of explorers, islanders,
And travelers who spend time
Moving from identity to identity
As tides, mistrals, maps dictate
The itinerary. Sedentary,
She lets her mind roam coasts
She's walked, recalls colloquies
Held while waste deep
In Maine's frigid waters.
Her only burden, a perfectly
Useless concentration
That keeps her poised above the past
Even as her proto-dream-house
Poises in its rickety splendor,
Dubious, apparitional, inviting,
Above a protean sea
Emerging each dawn from mist
Slick as sealskin, white
As fields of ice before the sun
Catches fire like the match
That lights the stove, a faint
Flickering beacon to whatever
Creatures roam the wide beach.
--DB, 1998