I could watch them glide inches above the sea...inches above the seatop at unfathomable speeds. The littleness of the bird, defiant and inimitable against the rushing backdrop is equally unfathomable, yet the little bird dismisses it without a sense of ego or bravado. Mass and energy, sprinting elements of wind and water exist outside the wheel where ambition and progress is overruled by freedom and instinct. If I chose to, I could watch the performance from a bluff, unconcerned with its science as the terns artfully fly undaunted by the sea's eerie and magnetic charm.

I could watch these little birds dance like ice-skating companions whose familiar touches have been practiced to extinction. I could observe this foreplay of physics, the mating of balance and gravity that is today, at this precise moment, more dynamic than ever. And then suddenly comes the peace. The serenity between the breezes, the incoming waves, the barking of the gulls. It's like stepping off a treadmill and hearing its wheels and bearings rub slowly to a stop. And everything is calm. A visual stillness comes like a meteor getting darker the deeper it moves into space.

It is like a rest in a musical score when the chorus and the orchestra stops for a beat or two and nothing plays but the space: the silent part that comes at the end of a foreign film before the credits when it is quiet and the last scene freezes upon the screen. I could see and hear that today on Tower Hill if I chose to. It is the last scene when serenity takes over and the recapitulation finally and really does surrender. The tern drags a talon along the seatop much like a lazy schoolgirl floating in a raft downstream dips her foot into the flood, dragging a toe beneath her. "

I could watch them glide inches above the sea...inches above the seatop at unfathomable speeds. The littleness of the bird, defiant and inimitable against the rushing backdrop is equally unfathomable, yet the little bird dismisses it without a sense of ego or bravado. Mass and energy, sprinting elements of wind and water exist outside the wheel where ambition and progress is overruled by freedom and instinct. If I chose to, I could watch the performance from a bluff, unconcerned with its science as the terns artfully fly undaunted by the sea's eerie and magnetic charm.

I could watch these little birds dance like ice-skating companions whose familiar touches have been practiced to extinction. I could observe this foreplay of physics, the mating of balance and gravity that is today, at this precise moment, more dynamic than ever. And then suddenly comes the peace. The serenity between the breezes, the incoming waves, the barking of the gulls. It's like stepping off a treadmill and hearing its wheels and bearings rub slowly to a stop. And everything is calm. A visual stillness comes like a meteor getting darker the deeper it moves into space.

It is like a rest in a musical score when the chorus and the orchestra stops for a beat or two and nothing plays but the space: the silent part that comes at the end of a foreign film before the credits when it is quiet and the last scene freezes upon the screen. I could see and hear that today on Tower Hill if I chose to. It is the last scene when serenity takes over and the recapitulation finally and really does surrender. The tern drags a talon along the seatop much like a lazy schoolgirl floating in a raft downstream dips her foot into the flood, dragging a toe beneath her. "