The Smell of the Sea

The American poet Mariane Moore wrote a perceptive, refined description of the ocean side in New England in her poem "The Steeplejack". It opens: Dürer would have seen a reason for living in a town like this, with eight stranded whales to look at; with the sweet sea air coming into your house on a fine day, from water etched with waves as formal as the scales on a fish. Wild juniper overlooki...