The sea was pink with sunset, the last light draining as high tide slowly reclaimed the beach. A huge harvest moon, flecked with clouds, was hanging just above the horizon in a sky still barely blue. On the distant line where the world curved away, you could see the white speck of the Channel ferry, bound for Calais.
Standing on the high seawall -- with no one around, no sound but the insistent boundless roar of the waves -- you could watch and wait, wait for a hint of wind to rake the clouds away from the moon. The pink sea shaded into gray. First one and then another of the seawall steps were covered by the swarming tide; the waves and the darkness were advancing together. A horsehead cloud flashed black against the vast yellow presence, then bowed its neck, drifted on -- and the moon emerged.
A rapier of light appeared on the surface of the water, a restless, shifting dazzlement, reaching all the way to the foot of the seawall, the edge of the tide. Wherever you stepped it followed, a pointillist blade aimed straight for your eyes. Imperceptibly but swiftly, the moon rose higher, grew harder and smaller, while the band of light, paradoxically, widened: Now a broadsword, now a road, now a river of diamonds pouring through the middle of the waves.
Astonishing, unlooked-for, this eruption of beauty, so perfect in its meaninglessness. It was just there, portending nothing, without signification. There was no goddess in the moon, no spirit in the sea: just form, line, curve, light -- combining, dissolving, recombining at every moment. A truth emptied of all utility, all contention, all continuity, of everything except the eternal imprint of reality.
http://context.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2005/09/23/120.html