The Light on Star Island
Montauk Yacht Club Resort and Marina, Room 124, Star Island, Montauk, New York
I arrived here today, on Star Island, in Lake Montauk, itself a bay almost completely separated from
the Long Island Sound (and, thus, the Atlantic Ocean), all of it within Montauk, New York, when the sun floated in the clearest blue sky at just such an angle as to cause the light to cast itself upon the surface of everything around me with a pure clarity.
My bed for the night is a few yards from the edge of the lake, so I walked through the sunlight, over miles of wooden piers, my shoes clacking on the boards, my eyes watching for everything: grass being mowed; cormorants, gulls, and crows; yachts. At one point, I saw a rope coiled on a pier, and I decided it was a poem:
Geof Huth, "Found and Aleatoric Poem # unknown: ofness" (Star Island, Montauk, New York, 14 October 2015)I began the walk with the goal of ending it at the beach, so I did. It was a tiny beach, a private beach for the hotel, and maybe only 12 couches wide. It slipped into the shallow near waters of the bay, and it was such a protected beach in such an isolated bay, that there was not much to beachcomb from its narrow sands. Still I found enough marine detritus and time to put together a small sculpture upon a rock placed at the edge of the beach. I made this little temporary sculpture as something to leave to be washed away, but I made it to be an extravagant, and stylized, letter, one with growths extending from its sides, and I called it a poem:
I
Geof Huth, "I, Sea" (Star Island, Montauk, New York, 14 October 2015)In the shallow, and usually pebbly, sand, I scratched a few words. Occasionally, I enhanced these words with a tiny dead crab or something else I found. I call poems that I make in this manner sandglyphs, though usually I make them next to the throbbing waves of the sea, so that they disappear seconds after being created. This time, I left them to be covered and washed away by the tide.
Geof Huth, "ofteN" (Star Island, Montauk, New York, 14 October 2015)After dinner, I went out into the night, to walk the piers into the darkness. As I turned left at the end of one pier to walk down another, I heard a sound, then I saw a large body of just-waking seagulls moving slowly as one, huddled together and moving left and right as if confused as to how to avoid me, and they started crying quietly as if muttering to themselves. Only a few flew away. It was a spooky moment, to wake these sleeping birds (and only a minute after wondering where the gulls slept). As I moved slowly away from, they starting to cry more loudly. Some of their cries sounded like the barking of seals.
ecr. l'inf.
I arrived here today, on Star Island, in Lake Montauk, itself a bay almost completely separated from
the Long Island Sound (and, thus, the Atlantic Ocean), all of it within Montauk, New York, when the sun floated in the clearest blue sky at just such an angle as to cause the light to cast itself upon the surface of everything around me with a pure clarity.
My bed for the night is a few yards from the edge of the lake, so I walked through the sunlight, over miles of wooden piers, my shoes clacking on the boards, my eyes watching for everything: grass being mowed; cormorants, gulls, and crows; yachts. At one point, I saw a rope coiled on a pier, and I decided it was a poem:
Geof Huth, "Found and Aleatoric Poem # unknown: ofness" (Star Island, Montauk, New York, 14 October 2015)I began the walk with the goal of ending it at the beach, so I did. It was a tiny beach, a private beach for the hotel, and maybe only 12 couches wide. It slipped into the shallow near waters of the bay, and it was such a protected beach in such an isolated bay, that there was not much to beachcomb from its narrow sands. Still I found enough marine detritus and time to put together a small sculpture upon a rock placed at the edge of the beach. I made this little temporary sculpture as something to leave to be washed away, but I made it to be an extravagant, and stylized, letter, one with growths extending from its sides, and I called it a poem:I
Geof Huth, "I, Sea" (Star Island, Montauk, New York, 14 October 2015)In the shallow, and usually pebbly, sand, I scratched a few words. Occasionally, I enhanced these words with a tiny dead crab or something else I found. I call poems that I make in this manner sandglyphs, though usually I make them next to the throbbing waves of the sea, so that they disappear seconds after being created. This time, I left them to be covered and washed away by the tide.
Geof Huth, "ofteN" (Star Island, Montauk, New York, 14 October 2015)After dinner, I went out into the night, to walk the piers into the darkness. As I turned left at the end of one pier to walk down another, I heard a sound, then I saw a large body of just-waking seagulls moving slowly as one, huddled together and moving left and right as if confused as to how to avoid me, and they started crying quietly as if muttering to themselves. Only a few flew away. It was a spooky moment, to wake these sleeping birds (and only a minute after wondering where the gulls slept). As I moved slowly away from, they starting to cry more loudly. Some of their cries sounded like the barking of seals.ecr. l'inf.
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