A special collection of Robert Dana's poems about the beaches of Cape Cod, the Outer Banks and Florida. A collection of what Dana calls "the great luggage of the sea," Hello Stranger is filled with sea oats and sabal palms and blues and willets and cockles and john-boats. Robert Dana's poems have both the tenderness and accuracy of Impressionist paintings. His beaches are washed and strewn with the understanding of a poet who uses language with uncommon accuracy.

Rapture

In the thick,Carolina night,
the great luggage of the sea
falls thudding and trundling
and tumbling up the stairs of
beach; its undertow hissing,
sometimes spitting, rolling
back on its own prolonged
susurrations; pouring in
loud hushes across planking
through the open bedroom door;
flooding room and mirror;
overwhelming our breathing;
drowning, almost, even sleep
in which something deeper
hurries away, and the day
repeats and repeats itself
like the heaven of the waves,
and we waken again to thrum
of diesel and the raging sun.