High Tide

On the one hand, high tide can mean “surf’s up” on a beautiful beach. You might be there with friends or family—waves big enough to ride, sun high in an azure sky. On the other, there is Dylan’s sinister warning: “It’s bad out there. High waters everywhere.” Those waves that seemed friendly before can be dark, ominous—dangerous. And a memory of a family walk on the beach, of childhood days spent on the Outer Cape in August, can seem a bit scarier as the tide of time steadily crawls up the sandy banks. . . .

Along with narrative poems of the poet’s past, this diverse collection contains poems of place about the Outer Cape, Wellfleet, Montana, and Somerville. Others address the changes to our environment, among them, the rising seas. Political poems recognize the chaos of our times, and try to divine order from this chaos. For what is poetry but a means to see the world through song and metaphor, a way to take a closer look at our lives and the world around us?