Seven o'clock, and eastward the twilight
galvanizes a horizon of competing blues—
the rusted turquoise of the Atlantic,
the royal cobalt of a sea-born tempest—
water and water converging at some thin infinity.

"If you like the weather," my taxi-driver explained,
"wait around five minutes." I told him thirty—
I cannot see the ocean from the Rocky Mountains,
and who knows when business will land me in Norfolk again.

But this is neither the time nor place
to find one's soul. It is a time for umbrellas,
and I have only a courtesy copy of USA Today
to guard this beach from steel sheets of rain
striping the Chesapeake Bay to the north,
tip-toeing towards me along the Eastern shore.

I am resting on the edge, no,
razor blade of indecisions.

It's not that I don't know the secrets of the universe,
because I think I'm pretty clear on all the quarks
and gluons and things hopelessly smaller
than bleached grains of sand sticking
to my naked feet.
And I think I get that whole Big Bang,
being, what, at least a few thousand times louder
than the growl of thunder
one, two, three miles away.

It's more that I have no vision.
Time is severed. Future and past
are this abrupt ocean shored up
against a decaying city run out of space;
so that even the simple questions
project to ambiguity:
Do I dare to stop for gas?
Shall I cover my head with crossed arms
as I run zig-zag from car to supermarket,
scattering conjured sniper-fire?

Or for that matter, am I safe
to sit on an algae-covered rock at low tide
and ask questions of a thunderstorm and the sea?

It's not even a lack of vision that haunts
me; rather an overabundance
around me. How many people have stood
where I stand, beheld this sea, known
what to make of it? I am not alone
on this beach, but in the company
of a million silhouettes illuminated
in intensifying lightning flashes.
In the tide I hear their hushed voices
speaking in awe of the swarming waves.
To my left, there's a Chesipean Indian
and her young child, admiring the end of the world;
a group of fisherman on the pier, smoking their tobacco.
To my right, a Confederate soldier
waiting upon a shipment of British ammunition;
a colonial American
looking out across the sea that delivered him
to a strange land, never to return.

But, wait, it is suddenly dark and there is no one,
and the sound I hear is only that of the whole
of history behind me, leaning in my ear,
speaking with a thousand foreign tongues.

Then, there is silence,
and I realize all along it has only been the ghost
of my grandfather, walking these shores,
watching these same waters that brought here him here,
a twenty-two year-old German in 1949
(for whatever reason, he's never told,
or I've never asked),
from which he couldn't get far enough away.

Now, he is forever exploring the edge of America
and the world.

This is how he explained the Atlantic to me:
"Schaut man weit genug hinaus, sieht man dann Gott."
I explained to him about Columbus, about
the curvature of the Earth, and space and time and Einstein,
and besides, even if things were flat, all you'd see is Europe.

"Nein," he replied, in wonting contemplation
of a black-and-white photo-plastered wall.
"Dort ist Gott."

What would he think of his grandson,
who sees only an ever-deepening blue;
who even now, as infrequent drops freeze
his flesh, freckle the sand,
is forgetting the beach,
wondering where to eat,
how much cash he'll need for the cab?