Everything you need to understand or teach View by Marvin Bell.
Sag Harbor, mentioned in the first line of View, is a town at
the end of Long Island, New York, not far from where Bell grew
up. It has a long history as a seaport, primarily for whaling
vessels, with European settlers arriving in the late 1600s. The
village is a well-known tourist destination. In the beginning
lines of this poem, the speaker presents a character (referred
to as you) who is interested, like many tourists, in a view of
the water. The narrator explains that the trees that come
between you and the harbor are not actually blocking the view,
because they are made of water themselves. In fact, both the
leaves of the trees and the air are said to be composed mainly
of water. Even the distance, as the bird flies or the squirrel
scampers, is identified as something composed of water. In the
eighth... View more of the View Summary