from · the sea · summer · beaufort 4
the marin
the marin comes off the water in the late afternoon, three days at a stretch,
and you taste it before you feel it. it is moist where the inland winds are dry.
it carries the harbour inland — the iodine of weed at low tide,
a faint warm rope, the breath of the sea from a long way off.
windows on the south side begin to film. linen, hung in the courtyard, will
not dry under it.
indoors it sounds like soft applause through a wall. the curtains will hold
themselves an inch off the sill and not return; the doors of upper rooms,
left ajar, sigh in unison. it is the wind that brings the slow rains that
follow it, the kind of rain noted in the almanac as
marine, persistent.
sailors used to say the marin loosens a knot you tied yesterday — it works
on rope as it works on plans. anything decided in its third day is to be
reconsidered on the fourth.
field note · iv · the salt edge on the kitchen window will not wipe off; it has to be allowed to leave. a south door, twice that summer, opened itself and closed itself by morning.