Absecon on the Bass River

After landfall in Atlantic City, the snow hurricane of 1804,
with its extra-tropical up-reach of clouds unleashed torrents
of  frozen rain that went to powder, and became a violent whiteout.
Crystal drifts called firn, turned into hard pack, firm enough to walk on.
It  smothered timber wolves, cattle and sheep, and culled deer.
Steeples and chimneys were blown apart. Ships splintered onto the beach. 

Stillness haunted the sands and marshes along the wilderness. 
Years later, two self-described hermits, Jeremiah Leeds and Jonathan Pitney,
sold the solitude as a commodity for four cents an acre.
Soon the landscape was reshaped once again.  This is the same as our story.
Landscapes deprecated, rivers sent off course, because we didn’t understand,
that with any change, the course of all else changes too. 

 

 

 

Jean Cassidy 2016