the way to the ocean
goes through New Jersey
named for an island
where a king once kept his head
on the other side of the Atlantic
an inch and a half farther away each year
which sounds like a tall tale
a sailor might tell
if boardwalk barkers didn’t already
cover the waterfront
on the way to the ocean
circling vultures turn into gulls
fish crows
quack like ducks
a mockingbird riffs from the roof
of a manufactured home
in a manufactured village
right off U.S. Route 322
which has somehow caught up with me
after we parted in the mountains
i walk its broad shoulder
past brown fields and brownfield sites
it’s early spring so most green things
are aliens: privet ivy multiflora rose
aside from a few
prickly natives:
American holly Atlantic whitecedar
and the pines the pines
their high pitch where forest fires licked
what the locals call sugar sand
ducking into the woods
i find an old homeless camp
collapsed tent frame
discarded high-visibility coveralls
on the way to the ocean
is no way to live
to settle like fallen leaves
wherever the wind takes us
living on the road means
a groundhog oblivious to traffic
burrow hidden in a tangle
of Oriental bittersweet
or a burger place across the road
from a billboard for addiction recovery
a farmer on a backhoe
leading a small herd of goats
pray, hope & don’t worry
says a sign by someone’s mailbox
beyond which I find a faded
bouquet of artificial roses
hanging upright where i imagine
it had been flung from a car window
the right of the people to keep and bear arms
shall not be infringed says a billboard
across the highway from a weeping cherry
in full glorious bloom
i turn onto a smaller road
past a resort campground
lakes are easy to make here
where the Atlantic once beached
circling one of them on foot
i am accosted twice
by people wondering whether i’m lost
or am looking for someone
and neither is a question i quite
know how to answer
a woman embracing a bear of a man
rumbles past on a Harley
and off under the pines
all around a derelict trailer
i spot the bright green flags
of skunk cabbages
the way to the ocean
doesn’t wait for continental drift
though perhaps it could i think
standing on the beach at Ocean City
gazing out at the immensity
for a heartbeat or two
then down to my feet
at scallop shells
reminding me that any road
can become a route for pilgrimage
you can walk the boardwalk
out past the end of capitalism
lie down in the sand
and rust
because the true way to the ocean
must begin at the ocean
students running with a kite
a man watching a fishing line
a child who digs shallow holes
and lets them fill with sky
with gratitude to my cousin Heidi Myers Suydam for all her hospitality
