It’s not the ocean’s job
to comfort me, but here I am 
each morning looking outside 
myself for succor. I watch the log 
on the shore but don’t learn from it: the log
is too obvious, stuck deep in sand,
patient until waves work it free.
And the snowy plovers, scuttled with worry 
in one skittery group, flapping 
and settling like a bed sheet.
How much can we ask a bird 
to bear? In the water 
some form only visible 
against foamy breaks—
surfer, shark, or something discarded.
Slick as a seal in my wet suit 
I slip in after it. The ocean
casts its tide high and low, a cycle 
I can’t set my watch by. If it has met grief,
if its heart has been broken, 
I can’t tell. It carries me anyway.