I’ve anticipated this morning in October. At the cliffs, I watched the lobster boats and there was the breeze—my Morning Gift. The day is sparkling and the ocean intensely blue. It’s a resonant sensory experience that connects me to growing up at the coast.

I wait for this day every October and today, the 12th, it has arrived. I wrote this poem in October 2011 but each autumn I anticipate my Morning Gift.

Oh to be able
To gather for you
The fresh smell of ocean
That greets me
As I walk to the garden this morning.
It overtakes any others
That I might sense:
The remnant of a passing diesel truck,
The faint odor of skunk
Or bacon cooking.
Today, I have ocean—
Honest and pure,
Unlike the advertised scent
On boxes of dryer sheets.
My mind holds
The image of the waves
As I walked along the cliffs
Last evening.
And the fragrance of ocean
Is my morning gift. 

—Susan Martin