JONATHAN WHITE

photo by Deborah Heffley Jones

Excerpt from
Tides—The Science and Spirit of the Ocean

When slack comes, it blankets the

narrows in magical stillness. It’s as if a

window, once closed and shuttered, has

been flung open and another world lets

itself be seen. Tension dissolves. Short

breaths become long. A fish jumps: two

cormorants take flight, stretching their

slender black bodies across the narrows.