Watching the Sea Go by Dana Levin

Thirty seconds of coil and surge,
               fern and froth, thirty seconds
                                of salt, rock, fog, spray.

                                                                           Clouds

moving slowly to the left—

               A door in a rock through which you could see

                                            __

another rock,
                                laved by the weedy tide.

               Like filming breathing—thirty seconds

of tidal drag, fingering
               the smaller stones
                                down the black beach—what color

               was that, aquamarine?
Starfish spread

                                their salmon-colored hands.

                                            __


               I stood and I shot them.

I stood and I watched them
right after I shot them: thirty seconds of smashed sea
while the real sea

thrashed and heaved—

They were the most boring movies ever made.
I wanted

to mount them together and press Play.

__


Thirty seconds of waves colliding.
Kelp

with its open attitudes, seals
riding the swells, curved in a row

just under the water—

the sea,

over and over.
Before it’s over.

The poet is filming the beach but I’m not sure why it’s in thirty second increments. But I like the format the poem is in, it didn’t translate well to the WordPress but the poet shifted each line. I wanna try something like that.