From Clare Leighton’s “Magic of the Flats” in Where Land Meets Sea:
The flats hold a subtle, rather than an obvious, beauty. It is the beauty of uncountable gradations of tone and hue, of the sheen and polish of exposed wet sand at low water. It is a world of reflections upon wet sand at low water. It is a world of reflections upon the wet sand from the slanted light of the morning sky.
There is a sense of vastness on such a morning. This stretch of mud and sand, merging imperceptibly in the far distance into remote water, seems to extend into eternity. In such a light, time and space become intermingled; we can no longer distinguish one from the other.
But it is not only the muted, opalescent coloring of the wet sand, shimmering and glinting upon the bed of the withdrawn ocean that holds such magic. There are uncountable variations of form here, too. For this is the whole earth in microcosm, with Lilliputian valleys and hills, gorges and plateaux. It might be said to be a child’s world, everything within grasp of the hand, the range of the eye.
I suspect that the folks here in Cape Cod think I’m a little dotty, wandering around with camera in hand to capture all the amazing colors and textures of this place…
