Shoring Up and Shoring Down

With near-anaphoric repetition
   the tedious Pacific yet insists
on pressing this our gritty beach
   for further evidence. And look!
At intervals the shore concedes. And Look!
   Here and there the cliffs
reveal the land has altogether
   acquiesced, having shrugged
its shoulders, shedding heaps
   of clay onto the grit.

With near-anaphoric repetition
   the melancholic ebb and flow
repeat their endless question, just as we
   interrogate the rock and clay
and fossil-bearing strata for a clue
   regarding what has brought us here,
regarding what might lead us hence.

--Scott Cairns (1954- ), American poet and former professor at the University of Missouri, from Anaphora: New Poems