IPSWICH — Sun worshippers climbing the boardwalks at Crane Beach this summer or grabbing a Greek salad wrap at the snack bar will come face to face with an unusual new beach feature — poetry. You could call this ode, "Love Letters for the Sand."

The Trustees of Reservations, owners of the beach, decided to bring art to the summer hot spot visited by more than 200,000 people every year. But it was clear it couldn't be visual art.

"You really can't compete with the images here," Beverly writer Colleen Michaels said.

"Align" is the actual title of the poem Michaels was commissioned to create for the Trustees, and its spray-painted stanzas are stencilled onto the risers on the two boardwalks to the beach, on the cedar shingles over the snack bar and bathhouses, and on the face of the arbor between them.

The project is the brainchild of Beverly resident Jim Younger, director of structural resources for the Trustees.

Younger attended a recent exhibit at Montserrat College of Art that used art to raise awareness about ecological sustainability. Younger was intrigued by the possibility of doing something similar in a natural setting, and he posed the idea to Shana Dumont, Montserrat's gallery director, who turned to fellow faculty member Michaels.

Michaels wrote the poem, and she and Dumont collaborated on the installation, which posed some challenges.

Most poetry is read top to bottom, beginning to end. Michaels and Dumont knew most beachgoers were unlikely to spend that much time before spreading their blankets, so they broke it into stanzas scattered around the beach.

Each stair riser on the boardwalks contains one line of a stanza, and Michaels' hope is that even if readers take in only a single line, they'll be provoked to think about their environment and its frailty.

"It's written to be taken in doses," Michaels said.

Dumont added, "We're trying to catch people off guard and make them think."

The physical arrangement of the verses means readers don't know where the poem is meant to begin or end, and you would have to climb both boardwalks and circle the snack bar to take it all in. That seems to lend more gravity to every line — each has to stand on its own.

Michaels said her poem is about which is bigger, people or nature?

"We've sort of bullied nature," she said.

In that vein, her paean to the beach is intended to have a shelf life. Each lightly painted letter will slowly fade away until there is no further trace of her efforts.

"The wind and sand and sun will do their work," she said.

Michaels' poems aren't normally so prominently exhibited.

"They're usually heard in very small coffee shops," she said with a smile. "This is not a poem I'd read anywhere else; it only fits here."

Michaels and her husband, Chris, did the stencilling on the boardwalk, Trustees members are donating their time to do the rest.

"It's a great place. Why would we not do it?" volunteer Nancy Pitino said.

"Align" may get a mixed reception among children intent on a day spent building sand castles and chasing waves, if Michaels' own daughter, Eliza, is any indication.

"She likes some of my poetry," Michaels said.

ALIGN

By Colleen Michaels

This beach has a history of habits.

The moon, a constant clock,

has always given rise to tides.

Wave by wave

the water wakes and sighs

shortens the sand

lengthens a swim

The wind

has always known

how to nudge

and urge

the sand into action,

setting a dune on

a blade of grass —

a foothold for

more wind

tangling the memory of

a pitch pine's roots

The sun signals

the terns

to journey,

a compromise

for more daylight.

The birds adjust, nest in our tracks,

because it makes,

for a fledgling,

a future

The lee of this chain

has been under the guidance

of the moon, the wind and the sun,

sage counsel to this,

our changing beach.

These are the habits

that a beach can honor

*

Our habitat of habit is gilded,

glossy and glaring,

we burn like the sun

assert like the wind

a pushy moon

sere and surge

Our wrack line, seedless

our water, a faucet running

a cumbersome coil

an indirect route

a spill

Our errands, bulked up

by consumer muscle,

not graceful and direct

on legs like the plover.

Nothing like the fleeting

shadow of wingspan

Our thirst sharper than salt,

We do so much.

All

to get away.

For a day like this

separate and splendid

from indoor life

to pretend proportion

and feel small against the sea

*

To be small again,

let morning light illuminate you

wave water cleanse you

the breeze power you

and let your footsteps,

a simple shift

from sole to sand,

fall lighter on this earth

Find a second life

for all

that you own.

Bury nothing,

but let it tide tumble

in a new

and useful way.

Bring home only what you need

Need less

Align with the sun, the wind and the moon

in their difficult work

to erase our footsteps,

our surfeit.

Blend in like the plover

cast a shorter shadow

shift like the dune.

Adopt an inconvenience

so that we all may keep

the sea

level