Wellfleet
Editor’s Note: Poet Angela Patten has a gift for bringing us right into a place, to see and reflect upon ordinary things. This poem brought me back to my childhood, when long summer days were spent exploring the salt marsh at Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary, watching the fiddler crabs dart about, in and out of their burrows. Although these charming crustaceans can be beneficial to the marsh, recent research shows that as they move northward with climate change, they can have a deleterious effect on marshes that have not adapted to their presence. “Wellfleet” was originally published in Live Encounters, and appears in Patten’s new collection, Feeding the Wild Rabbit. – Liz Thompson
“Fiddler crabs are so named because the male holds one claw, always much larger than the other, somewhat like a violin.”
– Encyclopedia Britannica
In the distance a house on stilts
all its balconies facing the water.
I imagine living there, encircled
by the sea’s perpetual music.
Salt marsh. Photo © Liz Thompson
Long grass of salt marshes, tidal flats
shallow pools thrumming.
Children at Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary. Photo © Eniola Oluwole
Fiddler crabs appear and disappear
diving and surfacing in an endless rhythm
roiling the sand as they sift and scavenge
for nourishment, pausing only when
the males brandish their colossal claws
to wave at their prospective mates
Male fiddler crab. Photo © David S. Johnson
moving their instruments in unison
like the string section of a surreal orchestra.
Angela Patten’s publications include five poetry collections, and her work has appeared in many literary journals and anthologies. Winner of the 2022 Anthony Cronin International Short Poem Award and other awards, Patten has received artist grants from the University of Vermont Retired Scholars Award Program, the Vermont Arts Council, and the Vermont Community Foundation. She has served as visiting writer at several institutions. Born and raised in Dublin, she maintains dual citizenship in Ireland and the United States. She lives in Burlington, Vermont, and is a Senior Lecturer Emerita in English at the University of Vermont.