from “outgoing tide—”
it has the depth of human error
I say this to myself about my face
& it’s true—low & intense first
winter light frost
softened sky colors & your deep ear
the oars glitter the water spires
high tide made a small
margin a salt whisker late
autumnal excess or clutter under
foot the salt dark comes late north
*
it has the depth of human error
manic pixie soccer mom
in the bleak midwinter—
hard wrackline of a year’s ebb
the tide inevitable & circumflex
a skiff of snow in the new week
the wave closes over
your point of entry
the ten a.m. bells ring six
minutes late—very gently struck—
*
it has the depth of human error
lowtide shipwreck greenribs
every dog likes dead things
that’s how you learn the notes on a treble clef
at five p.m. on the last day in ordinary tide
wind motion visible in sea smoke
a tidal island has
atlantic grammar
I obliterate myself with small tasks
now that I have been inland a while
Copyright © 2023 by Pattie McCarthy. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on August 3, 2023, by the Academy of American Poets.
“This poem grew out of the phrase ‘the depth of human error,’ which emerged from a conversation with my fourteen-year-old son about music. We were driving, listening to the radio, and discussing a song he really liked, which I did not—because it was too perfect; it left no room for error. In the poem, I was thinking about the mistakes that make things interesting. The landscape of the poem is that of midcoast Maine, with its dramatic tides.”
—Pattie McCarthy
Pattie McCarthy
