Thirty seconds of yellow lichen.
Thirty seconds of coil and surge,
fern and froth, thirty seconds
of salt, rock, fog, spray.
Clouds
moving slowly to the left―
A door in a rock through which you could see
―
another rock,
laved by the weedy tide.
Like filming breathing―thirty seconds
of tidal drag, fingering
the smaller stones
down the black beach―what color
was that, aquamarine?
Starfish spread
their salmon-colored hands.
―
I stood and I shot them.
I stood and I watched them
right after I shot them: thirty seconds of smashed sea
while the real sea
thrashed and heaved―
They were the most boring movies ever made.
I wanted
to mount them together and press play.
―
Thirty seconds of waves colliding.
Kelp
with its open attitudes, seals
riding the swells, curved in a row
just under the water―
the sea,
over and over.
Before it’s over.
Copyright @ 2014 by Dana Levin. Used with permission of the author.