A poetry writing workshop will be held at the Theodore Roosevelt Nature Center, Jones Beach State Park, on March 1 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. The workshop is limited to 20 people. To make reservations please call 679-7254. Writers are asked to bring a brown-bag lunch and a donation of $3 is asked.

The event features a talk by the TRNC staff naturalist, then a staff-guided walk from Parking Field 10 westward to near the Meadowbrook Parkway Bridge where you can observe the Harbor Seals that winter in those waters. Dress warmly and, if you have them, bring binoculars.

When the group returns to the TRNC, Nassau County unofficial Poet Laureate Maxwell Corydon Wheat Jr., will conduct a poetry writing session followed by sharing of participants' Harbor Seal poetry.

The workshop is part of a project of the poet laureate and the Nassau County Poet Laureate Committee, Paula Camacho, Farmingdale, coordinator, to build a body of Long Island natural and human history poetry - not that it hasn't been done for years. The famous 19th-century poet, Walt Whitman, wrote poetry about Montauk Point, the ocean beaches and the Pine Barrens. Now it is purposeful. Mr. Wheat is encouraging current Long Island poets to build their own repertories of Long Island Poetry that they can take before organizations in reading programs.

Writing freelance nature articles for Newsday's Part II, Maxwell Corydon Wheat, Jr., reported in a story, Feb. 25, 1972, that about 50 harbor seals were being seen in Long Island waters from December to May "bobbing their puppy-like heads above the surface or lolling like pampered royalty on banks, beaches and islands." By the mid-'80s, biologists were estimating 400 seals a winter according to Margaret Mittelbach and Michael Crewdson in their Newsday article, Feb. 14, 1995, "A Surge of Seals." By 1995, they said, the annual estimate was 4,000 including increased appearances of Arctic and hooded seals.

Wanderers from New England waters

sleeping on rocks at Montauk

another floating way out on a chunk of ice

small herd moving offshore at Amagansett

seals hunting fish in Shinnecock Inlet

where Grandmother always took me

Even with a nor'easter coming up we'd stay

snow slanting into our faces

"Look, there's one!" she'd shout

I could barely see the dark shape of a head in the whitecaps

But on a clear day the sun brightening the snow on the dunes

we'd get close-ups of their round faces looking at us

"Seals," she'd call pointing them out

to some disbelieving couple who'd run back

to bring others

Grandmother: shepherd of seals

Directions: South on Wantagh Parkway to Bay Parkway (first exit after toll plaza, before Ocean Parkway), west on Bay Parkway, follow signs to Nature Center at West End. Or Meadowbrook Parkway south to Ocean Parkway, exit at West End exit, which is just after the draw-bridge, then follow signs to Nature Center.