One timber piling remains of our dock
washed away during the last hurricane.
An unmoored sailboat, ripped along its hull,
came to rest on a bed of oyster shoals and
leaned precariously against the bared sea wall
for months until someone hauled it away last week,
osprey nest still atop its mast. The hawk flew in circles
for days surveying empty space, then finally lit on the
lone column, clutching a silvery fish. Now many find
this perch: pelicans, terns, anhinga drying their wings
on a small circle of wood rising out of the bay. We have
no plans to rebuild the dock nor remove what survived.
The singular post serves purpose still:
by design, chance, or circumstance.
