To Our Tenants

Have you by now discerned the secret, seen sentiments of this house to be

larger than the lives we live, this

pretension to exist on the edge of a

sea, when we never go out toward the

horizon farther than the curve of this

safe bay, only sample storms from

walks, wear oilskins, buy lanterns and oil,

yet go out in no roiling boat, this way of

life only a matter of summer

weeks? We are not here to see the

geese in their southbound vee's, it is

not we who test salt-soft marsh ice.

Camus' quote on the sixties poster

"In the midst of winter I learned

there is within me an invincible

summer" waits too civilized in the

cold upstairs room, till we steal back

another spring and more lilacs from the

bush next door. Still you and we have

both balanced on this thin, shimmering

slice of shore. Camus is right. Winter is

long, summer is truer, these short days

know lines from an infinite play.