Where I live on the upper Cape, that part of it which lies between the Cape Cod canal and Orleans, the land heads out directly to the sea, toward the east from the continental west. Cape Cod Bay lies to the north and Nantucket Sound to the south. The arm of the lower Cape turns in the Orleans area and heads up on a north-south axis, the head of it, or hand if you like, curving around so that the sandy barrens in the Provincetown area are oriented in an east to west direction again. I am used to looking toward Kansas to see the setting sun, and from the curving shore line at Truro I had the illusion that it was setting in the north and that when it rose the next morning it appeared to be located not very far from where it set, a matter of ninety or a hundred degrees. In fact it does set closer to the north at this time of year, and along the flat ocean horizon this becomes more clear to the eye, as well as its relative position at dawn and its arc during the day. On the open beach in spring and summer you are not only at the sun’s mercy in a real sense, but you are also under wider skies. In the comparative isolation of the beach, which is convex, slanting steeply toward the water, and therefore hides its distances, I felt reoriented, turned out and around through no effort of my own, and faced in many possible directions. Shortly before sundown a beach buggy, curtains at its windows and a dory attached, lumbered slowly down some preordained ruts in the sand, and then a smaller one passed by at the top of the low dunes behind me. Fishing poles were slung along the outside of both machines. It was getting to be a good time to cast for striped bass. I sat on the sands and listened to the sonorous heave and splash of low waves. The sun, like a colossal red balloon filled with water, was sinking in to the horizon. It swelled, flattened, and disappeared with a final rapidity, leaving a foaming, fiery band behind it. I suddenly heard the wild, trembling cry of a loon behind me, and then saw it fly over, heading north. The wind grew cool, after a hot day when the light shone on metallic, glittering slow waters, and sharp, pointed beach grasses clicked together, while I watched the darkness falling around me.