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113
Colleague with a Notebook
Beach wide and fl at. I run, dully, on a sheet
Of neutral-colored light, slipping along
In the wet is a blurry quarter moon, a tongue
Of water pushes in quietly over the wet,
Quick-sliding, low-hissing, its tip of foamy white
Entering up the sand. Then I'm among
The seal brown, seal high rocks -- old seals and young
Seaward they slant, alertly -- exposed of late
By the winter tides ... slowly, on the way back,
Darkness coming, the horizon turns a bright,
Deep orange-red, the exact color of the throat
Of a cutthroat trout! Pass a man writing a note
(His camera's set up) and look back -- beach black
Where he stands, crossed with great slashes of light.