Nature’s Etch-a-Sketch

The colossal tides that flush Turnagain Arm sculpt the silt into unpredictable shapes, ever changing and beautiful. I found these S-curves emerging from the ebb on a bar off the Gull Rock coast of the Kenai Peninsula a few miles west of Hope. Their undulating pattern seemed remarkably consistent from the small scale to the large. But I knew it was ephemeral, lasting only until the next cycle of the tide. It struck me that I was witnessing nature’s art show, painted twice each day by nature’s hand. Nature draws it for you. You see it, and then later, it’s gone, erased by the coming flood. I think about all the beauty no one’s ever seen–and the fact that I just happened to catch this one.