Walk with me along Provincetown’s shore.
We’ll stroll through ripples of time,
these oft etched sands.
Some days smooth,
some days ribbed like corduroy wale.
Some days strewn with seaweed turned black
from upheaval by tides in stormy rage.
Walk by children’s sand castles,
knowing that by night’s end
waves will fill their moats,
capture make-shift popsicle wrappers
turned turret flags.
Farther down the coast
remnants of wharves and docks
once sentinels for Portuguese fishing boats,
stand ghostlike in their dampened pallor.
Imagine Wampanoags and Nausets here,
long before pilgrims usurped their land.
Think about artistic genius in this community:
Eugene O’Neill, Norman Mailer,
Jackson Pollock, Tennessee Williams,
E.E. Cummings. More recently,
Mary Oliver lived here for over fifty years,
inspired by the raw beauty of this place.
And at night’s end, watch the sky with me,
painted in pastels or crimson reds.
Tip a glass of wine my friend,
sit now and relax.
Allow your muse to enjoy every sip.
Written for Tuesday Poetics at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Today I’m hosting and asking folks to take us on a walk in their poem! Come join us – my guess is we’ll be walking many enjoyable miles through the words of many!
Photos are from our many two-week sojourns to Provincetown – at the very tip – the very end of Cape Cod.
lillian the home poet 
This is incredibly gorgeous, Lillian! Wow! 😍 I so love the photos and the fact that Mary Oliver lived there for so many years and was inspired by the beauty of this place! It is indeed a sight to behold ❤️❤️
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Thank you, Sanaa. I am so looking forward to being back there again next week!
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Love how you was our guide in the walk with so many sights and so much history… love all the details you brought.
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Thank you, Bjorn. We do love it there! We take the fast ferry there this Saturday! We’ll be having lunch by the ocean 🙂
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I think I’ll be visiting all these wonderful places in my dreams tonight, Lill! This is a place I would love to visit, and I’m delighted to join you by the Provincetown shore. The photos are perfect illustrations of your words: the etched sands, ‘Some days smooth, / some days ribbed like corduroy wale.’ You’ve even included a bit of history about the ‘remnants of wharves and docks / once sentinels for Portuguese fishing boats’ and the Wampanoags and Nausets. It’s amazing to think of all those writers living there too. A beautiful walk, Lill!
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Thank you, Kim. Glad to take you along 🙂
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I remember you always painted lovely pictures of places that I now long to see, this one is added to the list. It sounds like it has had a colourful history and clearly is a wonderful landscape,
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It is a beautiful place. We’ll return this Saturday for two beautiful weeks in the unit we’ve rented for twenty-five years. The muse is always ripe to sit by the ocean 🙂
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A beautiful walk on the beach, Lillian. There is nothing like Nature in the raw! The beach is an open wound that keeps on giving!
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I do love the ocean….most in the moments right before sunrise and in the moments right before sunset. 🙂
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How beautiful Lillian, and your photos just enhance the experience ❤️
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Thank you – we’ll be back there for two weeks beginning Saturday. So looking forward to it! 🙂
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What beautiful pictures. This part really stood out to me:
“Walk by children’s sand castles,
knowing that by night’s end
waves will fill their moats,
capture make-shift popsicle wrappers
turned turret flags.”
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So glad you enjoyed, Melissa! 🙂
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Beautiful walk through Provincetown thank you for taking us there. It sounds amazing and famous people have called it home…Mary Oliver being one of my favourites! 🙂
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I love her work as well. It is indeed, a very special place!
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Thanks for taking me along this walk and remembering great poets.
Much🖤love
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Glad you enjoyed, Gillena!
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I had a strange experience with your link yesterday evening. Before writing my poem, I clicked on a few links to see what kind of places everyone was writing about. I haven’t been anywhere exotic for years. I clicked on your poem and it was about Provincetown, thought, okay, not too exotic, and wrote my poem. When I came back to your poem to comment, the link was to a poem about rain. Back again, and Provincetown is back. Am I going mad?
It sounds like a lovely place for a family holiday!
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You’re not going mad 🙂 My son-in-law’s mother, Lindsey, occasionally sends me poems that respond to prompts at dVerse. She doesn’t have a blog of her own so I put them on my blog. I actually have two links on Mr. Linky this time that lead to my blog…but one has the name Lindsey on Mr. Linky and it goes to my blog, but her poem about walking in the rain. The other link at Mr. Linky has lillian on it and it leads also to my blog, but to my poem about Provincetown. Mystery solved. And yes…Ptown is our very special place. We’ve been renting the same unit for 25 years. It’s right on the ocean and true bliss. Since rejuvenatement (never say re-tirement), we’ve gone for the two weeks after Labor Day weekend which is low tourist season. It’s much more quiet in town and on the beach by our place. We leave this Saturday on the fast ferry from Boston to Ptown. The muse awaits me on our deck by the ocean 🙂
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Lucky!
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Thank you for that shore walk. Provincetown is beautiful, but it’s been a while. I loved bicycling the trail through the dunes.
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Gorgeous pics and poem! I especially loved the lines
We’ll stroll through ripples of time,
these oft etched sands.
Some days smooth,
some days ribbed like corduroy wale.
Some days strewn with seaweed turned black
from upheaval by tides in stormy rage.
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How lovely, and I did walk with you….. I was so fortunate to visit Provincetown several years ago (my cousin is now in Boston and we drove to Cape Cod) amazing place, and was lovely to revisit in your poem
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Ripples of time and etched sand really tugged at my heart Lillian, a feast for the senses.
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