They come by dawn’s early light


Just past Five am, they do an extended aerial search,
though well familiar with the shoreline and our oppo
campsites, they fly over in formation noisily debating,
which hunting grounds seem most secure, least guarded.

the scouts, numbering six, descend to the far edge of an
adjoining neighbor’s property, as always, remaining close
to the water’s edge, while the main body of these ghastly,
geesely beasts, numbering today a massive force of 42, land and storm our beach, after traversing up the earthen berms that buffer the bulkhead, and that also provides them a out-of-sight, surreptitious, secretive approach to the fresh green grass, that has emerged from two days of much needed sky watering.

Our preparations are at the ready, the old faux velvet slippers by the door, next to it our weapon of choice, a white parasol, most suitable for a tour group of tourists to follow, but this day, it is an extension of a waving arm and low growling.  Once the bevy of heads are espied bobbing spotted coming over the rise that downward slopes to the beach, the battle commences!

The two forces well known to each other, we advance slowly,
with a deliberate mien on our faces and in our step, and the enmity, I mean enemy, sees us coming and the alert is squawked, and all heads raised. they the geese, are in full dress fight or flee modality.  

We get within but a few paces when they squeak retreat, and in good order march to the beach, hoping to observe us in an early retreat and plan a sneaky return.  But we  proceed closer and they beat their wings and head to safety, and seeing us close observing their action, wisely to the water go.

But we know them well. Uncannily uncanny, they pretend to hide evasively, with semi-wounded pride nursed, while under the cover afforded by the dock. Yet, seeing our presence in attentive attention,  go forth finally to a safe distance to the wide, broad Peconic Bay.  

But this day is not yet over, for these foul fowl, counting upon human laziness and the appeal of a quick victory, paddle over to our other neighbor’s unguarded land mass and start to clamber up onto dry land 100 yards further east.

We gamely observe and realize furthest action now required,
descend to the beach, each side warily observing, regrouping.
Our approach is well kenned, and the enemy decides this day their cause is lost, and to the water retreat once more, heading around the bend, onwards to Shell Beach and West Neck Harbor.

As we return to our encampment, the bunny rabbits who,live beneath the deck emerge to give us glorious applause, for love no lost tween these two mismatched species of the same Kingdom, who share the appetite for the grasses greenest nutrients, though the geese leave their dreaded cluster bombs most unpleasant, and fully ravage the grass as if it was theirs alone.

The rabbits bring us coffee in porcelain mugs, steaming hot, for they have witnessed before this dance, most progressive, this charade of derring do, and love the quietude of the early morning, happy to share it with the itinerant beach walkers of the early hours and our
Dawn Patrol.

We drink in  our victory in deep and hot, and note per doctors orders, that our heart rate never exceeded 125 beats per minute, as ordered.

Sunday Jul 25
Silver Beach Armed Forces (SBAF!)
Peconic Beach Division

Officer Natalino (his official code name]

Listen my children and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five;
Hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers that famous day and year.

He said to his friend, “If the British march
By land or sea from the town to-night,
Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry arch
Of the North Church tower as a signal light,—
One if by land, and two if by sea;
And I on the opposite shore will be,
Ready to ride and spread the alarm
Through every Middlesex village and farm,
For the country folk to be up and to arm.”

Then he said “Good-night!” and with muffled oar
Silently rowed to the Charlestown shore,
Just as the moon rose over the bay,
Where swinging wide at her moorings lay
The Somerset, British man-of-war;
   A phantom ship, with each mast and spar
Across the moon like a prison bar,
And a huge black hulk, that was magnified
By its own reflection in the tide.

Meanwhile, his friend through alley and street
Wanders and watches, with eager ears,
Till in the silence around him he hears
The muster of men at the barrack door,
The sound of arms, and the ***** of feet,
And the measured tread of the grenadiers,
Marching down to their boats on the shore.

Then he climbed the tower of the Old North Church,
By the wooden stairs, with stealthy tread,
To the belfry chamber overhead,
And startled the pigeons from their perch
On the sombre rafters, that round him made
Masses and moving shapes of shade,—
By the trembling ladder, steep and tall,
To the highest window in the wall,
Where he paused to listen and look down
A moment on the roofs of the town
And the moonlight flowing over all.

Beneath, in the churchyard, lay the dead,
In their night encampment on the hill,
Wrapped in silence so deep and still
That he could hear, like a sentinel’s tread,
The watchful night-wind, as it went
Creeping along from tent to tent,
And seeming to whisper, “All is well!”
A moment only he feels the spell
Of the place and the hour, and the secret dread
Of the lonely belfry and the dead;
For suddenly all his thoughts are bent
On a shadowy something far away,
Where the river widens to meet the bay,—
A line of black that bends and floats
On the rising tide like a bridge of boats.

Meanwhile, impatient to mount and ride,
Booted and spurred, with a heavy stride
On the opposite shore walked Paul Revere.
Now he patted his horse’s side,
Now he gazed at the landscape far and near,
Then, impetuous, stamped the earth,
And turned and tightened his saddle girth;
But mostly he watched with eager search
The belfry tower of the Old North Church,
As it rose above the graves on the hill,
Lonely and spectral and sombre and still.
And lo! as he looks, on the belfry’s height
A glimmer, and then a gleam of light!
He springs to the saddle, the bridle he turns,
But lingers and gazes, till full on his sight
A second lamp in the belfry burns.

A hurry of hoofs in a village street,
A shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the dark,
And beneath, from the pebbles, in passing, a spark
Struck out by a steed flying fearless and fleet;
That was all! And yet, through the gloom and the light,
The fate of a nation was riding that night;
And the spark struck out by that steed, in his flight,
Kindled the land into flame with its heat.
He has left the village and mounted the steep,
And beneath him, tranquil and broad and deep,
Is the Mystic, meeting the ocean tides;
And under the alders that skirt its edge,
Now soft on the sand, now loud on the ledge,
Is heard the ***** of his steed as he rides.

It was twelve by the village clock
When he crossed the bridge into Medford town.
He heard the crowing of the ****,
And the barking of the farmer’s dog,
And felt the damp of the river fog,
That rises after the sun goes down.

It was one by the village clock,
When he galloped into Lexington.
He saw the gilded weathercock
Swim in the moonlight as he passed,
And the meeting-house windows, black and bare,
Gaze at him with a spectral glare,
As if they already stood aghast
At the ****** work they would look upon.

It was two by the village clock,
When he came to the bridge in Concord town.
He heard the bleating of the flock,
And the twitter of birds among the trees,
And felt the breath of the morning breeze
Blowing over the meadow brown.
And one was safe and asleep in his bed
Who at the bridge would be first to fall,
Who that day would be lying dead,
Pierced by a British musket ball.

You know the rest. In the books you have read
How the British Regulars fired and fled,—
How the farmers gave them ball for ball,
From behind each fence and farmyard wall,
Chasing the redcoats down the lane,
Then crossing the fields to emerge again
Under the trees at the turn of the road,
And only pausing to fire and load.

So through the night rode Paul Revere;
And so through the night went his cry of alarm
To every Middlesex village and farm,—
A cry of defiance, and not of fear,
A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door,
And a word that shall echo for evermore!
For, borne on the night-wind of the Past,
Through all our history, to the last,
In the hour of darkness and peril and need,
The people will waken and listen to hear
The hurrying hoof-beats of that steed,
And the midnight message of Paul Revere.

We are spirits
bound to this world,
its fate our own.
An encampment of lost souls;
banned from heaven,
with no chance to roam the spheres.
We etch out meager lives
a mere half shadow of angels,
an echo of demons lust.

Black lake reflects a trail of ivory plumes,
Cockatiel's alabaster tail of feathers.
Such loveliness can only be the moon's,
Which skinny-dips in lunar altogethers.

Raccoons catch fish along the shore,
Fastidious paws clutching their prizes.
She paddles her canoe with silent oar,
Observing nature's soft nocturne disguises.

Silhouetted loons rock low upon the waves,
Asleep till sunlight sets them to their songs.
Her wake bisects the path the moon engraves,
As wilderness whispers tranquilly she belongs.

She'll stay the night foregoing comfort fire,
Moonlight enough by which to pitch a tent.
And come tomorrow should anyone inquire,
No trace reveals her overnight encampment.