THE DINGHY, THE EGRET & THE BEETLE 

by Matthew Smith

Half buried (and altogether rather unremarkable),

rests a wooden dinghy, long since usable,

on the shore of Punta del Diablo—

left by a fisherman who—

after cursing more than once about

the unreliability of sea vessels—

kicked sand once, twice, three times,

then turned his leathery back on it forever.

The tide, in its unrelenting pursuit to devour

anything brazen enough to slumber on its

shoreline—

(drunks, and shells, and garbage, and

forgotten fishermen’s forgotten dinghies)

has overtaken the boat, centimeter by centimeter,

and day by day by day.

Finding refuge in the right-side-down belly

of the half-buried (but half-surfaced to be fair) dinghy

is a beetle, which, upon fleeing

the unexpected attack of an egret,

was delighted to encounter a surprise magnolia flower,

growing in the shade produced

by the altogether unremarkable dinghy

left there by a leather-backed fisherman

quite some time ago.

At this moment, the beetle is happily munching

on a particularly tasty leaf, and has all but forgotten

about the near death trauma it experienced,

only moments ago.

The water splashes powerfully, but peacefully,

the wind is little more than a hushed whisper,

the egret takes flight once more,

the dinghy continues to sink slowly,

and the beetle chomps, chomps, chomps quietly

on a magnolia petal.

Somewhere—wars rage.

Somewhere, people squeeze into elevators

and avoid eye contact, and drink coffee,

and sleep restlessly—if they sleep at all;

and some days, I think, we are the dinghy,

and some days I swear we are the tide;

and some days we are the egret

and some days we are the beetle;

and most days we are just the fishermen—

abandoning everything,

because we are too human to appreciate

the value in broken and sinking things.