“The Deserted Beach” by Guy Terrell

William Merritt Chase, The Deserted Beach, 1907, oil on canvas. Gift of the artist, 1916. Collection of the Maier Museum of Art at Randolph College, founded as Randolph-Macon Woman’s College.

after William Merritt Chase’s The Deserted Beach

The beach filters shells, seaweed, and sand
from the ocean’s constant threshing.

No woman there with a scarf like a ship’s signal
flapping in the breeze to photograph.

Waves crash on an outcrop of narrow rocks,
spume like white cymbals slamming in concert.

Distant sailboats make ballet troupe movements

across a blue steel floor, exit stage left.

Clouds, pillows flung in air, play for a moment.
A detail you can only see close, close up—

a steamship leaving a trail of black smoke
as it moves off in the distance heading for port

before sunset when the long hinge that holds
the sky open, closes on the deserted beach.