The shore is an ancient world, for 1 long as there has been an earth and sea 2 , has been this place of the meeting of land and 3 . Yet it is a world that keeps alive the sense 4 continuing creation and of the relentless drive of life. Each time 5 I enter it, I gain some new awareness of its beauty and its deeper meanings, sensing that intricate fabric of life 6 which one creature is linked with another, and each with its surroundings.
7 my thoughts of the shore, one place stands apart for its revelation of exquisite beauty. It is a pool hidden within a cave 8 one can visit only rarely and briefly when 9 lowest of the year"s low tides fall below it, and perhaps from that 10 fact it acquires some of its special beauty. Choosing such a tide, I hoped 11 a glimpse of the pool. The ebb was 12 fall early in the morning. I knew that 13 the wind held from the northwest and no interfering swell ran in 14 a distant storm the level of the sea should drop below the entrance 15 the pool. There had been sudden ominous showers in the night, with rain 16 handfuls of gravel flung on the roof. When I looked out into the 17 morning the sky was full of a gray dawn light but the sun had not yet risen. Water and air were pallid. Across the bay 18 moon was a luminous disc in the western sky, suspended 19 the dim line of distant shore—the full August moon, drawing the tide to the low, low levels of the threshold of the alien sea world. As I watched, a gull flew by, above the spruces. Its breast was rosy 20 the light of the unrisen sun. The day was, after all, to be fair.