This week I was honored to have one of my poems chosen for publishing in the Cape Cod Times. The second one this year. The Cape is my home away from home and I've been going there throughout the year since I was about 20 years old. So...a long while. For two-thirds of my life, Cape Cod has captured my heart and has been a special place of inspiration. I have always had a particular fascination for the Dune Shacks at the Peaked Hill Bars historic district in Provincetown. Nestled among the dunes of Cape Cod National Seashore, they have been a sanctuary and studio for creative spirits since the 1920s. My poem is about the Dune Shacks.
I love the way they honor, celebrate, and make space for things so often misunderstood. Things like simplicity, creativity, authenticity, and solitude. The shacks seem to have a reverence for the dunes, all the while inviting residents to become more fully alive than ever, within and around those simple spaces. As a hearing impaired, introvert, and creative spirit, I appreciate the opportunities these sacred spaces provide for anyone wanting that experience.
My poem was further inspired by Jane Paradise's book Dune Shacks of Provincetown, and her exhibit at the Cape Cod Museum of Art earlier this year. Here is my poem and a link to view it in the Cape Cod Times. If you have a connection to the Cape and would like to submit a poem for consideration, instructions to do that are at the bottom of the article in the link. Perhaps you will be as inspired by Cape Cod as I am.
I’m a Dune Shack
Sanctuary - Stillness
A landscape ever-shifting
Habitats of solitude
Bare essential dwellings
Emptiness, yet full of life
Days and nights, they come and go
Pondering creations majesty
So much room to grow
Artistic endeavors
Reveal themselves
Muses on the loose
In every corner, nook and shelf
Heart and soul discovered
In these shelters by the shore
Ensconced with great tradition
In jeopardy, once more
Can we honor
The place they hold
For families and artists near and far
Can we be so bold?
Melding together, surf, sand and shack
They mean so much to those who come
Kerouac, Oliver, O’Neil, and Pollock
Dune Shack dwellers, every one
Taken in by the organic beauty
Entranced by every thing
Circles in the sand, a dune grass wand
The art of uber-simple living
Inspiration does its dance
In this mystical place
Where enormous things are possible
Within this minimalist space
A play, a poem, a painting born
Amidst rolling dunes and fresh salt air
Yes, I’ve a Dune Shack in my bones
Even though I’ve never been there
By Patricia Ann Chaffee
October 17, 2023
Photo: National Park Service
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