Since 2023, I have been a resident artist with One Landscape, an environmental organization devoted to preserving wild and fragile ecosystems. To walk in Napeague, at the far eastern reach of New York State, is to observe, experience, and participate in a seascape in constant transition. Napeague means “land overflowing with water,” and that interplay of water and land has formed and re-formed the region for eons, beginning with the long, slow melt of the glacier that first formed Long Island. My immersive walks have taught me to see a beach not so much a place as a condition, the land an amalgam of elements ground by the water’s lapping and pounding. Impermanence defines Napeague, even as human residents build homes they believe are solid and will endure. This poem,  part of my Napeague “dossier,” is set on the Atlantic Ocean.