I wish I was in a Winnebago
headed cross country for San Diego:
where regulation Navy butts are pressed and square;
and whale tails wave heralding the path to Mexico.
Sea breezes carrying Tahiti spume mists my hair.
Faint music and Bali's distant drums bid me come there.
The far away isles of mystery caress my soul and call me.
Surly no conjured empty lighthouse beacon this:
rather my psyche's search for bliss.
Maybe I search out some place warm and fair
to spend January and February.
You have all the attributes of the ocean.
Yet how quiet you are.
How softly you kiss the beach that surrounds you,
speaking morning and evening prayers.
Your waves whisper
"Peace"
to the shore.
The birds are at ease in you strength.
You meet their needs each day.
They skim your surface
while you select their fare.
Oh, proud ocean
full of billows and breakers run wild.
You could learn from the humble bay,
tamed in its power by the shore.
So, today you exert your authority.
With a great raised voice
you lash out at the shore.
While faithfully she still holds you,
the object of your rage,
not the cause.
Innocent she remains.
Silently she guards you..
Your wrath is only for today.
Tomorrow you will be calm.
Softly you will kiss the sand,
not mindful of what you washed away.
Ecologically challenged, egotistical water.
Eighteen Brown Pelicans in a row.
Only the first knows where to go.
The last dips, one wing clips
the cracking point of the wave.
A rudder steering the linear fishing line.
Bow and stern communicate in perfect time.
Perched like pelicans on the pier,
leaning hard on the rail
lost in the pilings
staring thoughts into the waves
saying anything, anything,
fill up my pail.
Carp
crab,
flat tire
fluke
tree bark
shark
flounder
garbage.
Spindle-legged, knocked-kneed crane.
Giraffe-necked, eagle-beaked bird.
With elephant feet and beady eyes
you plod without grace through the sand
poking, pecking the water’s rough edge
gulping whatever you can.
Do you walk in the water to hide you feet?
Do you care?
Funny crane, your feathers of white,
splendid to glide you through the air
only serve as a beacon
that catches my eye.
Smiling, laughing,
I’m watching you there.
Twenty-eight feet of wooden boat
takes me away three days a week from reality
to a world of salt water, waves, sails and sea.
You baptize me from death to life, and smooth the lines.
Furrows on my brow
fall
from my face,
find their place
in your wake.
What are you on the beach for:
green long-legged lady who eats her lovers?
Looking for a meal, perhaps;
some soon to be X-living legacy
to fill your tiny hatchery?
Hello, Sand Crab,
looking back at me,
colored up like your surroundings
thinking I don’t see.
But your big brown eyes
have given you away,
and your itty-bitsy busy feet
threw sand on me.
Sandpiper beads
strung on a chain of thin foam
peeping prayers to the sea.
A dolphin blows
lolly-gaggin’
through the shallow
sandy foam.
I wonder if he
writes a poem about me.
The water curls continuously upon itself.
Overlapping children roaring with delight,
the laughing waves toss the tiny shinny bodies
back to shore.
Each wave a virgin curled up in a negligee
of frothy white
waiting on the moonlit
rumpled sand.
You walked away.
I watched you go and did not try once more
to make you stay.
The water’s edge curled round your feet.
Your footprints and our castles
drifted out to sea.
I watched you pause
to wait for my familiar call.
My eyes were dry:
the last tears had vanished into the sand,
and drifted out to sea.
Above the roaring ocean, I heard a new melody.
At long last you were out of me.
Rolling out.
So am I.
Each succeeding wave
covers less shore.
Beautiful,
alone,
free,
suspended by the sea,
the tide will bring the water back,
but not me.
She lays and waits on the sand.
He wades water with the child
playing a child’s game.
She rests with a book
under the multicolored umbrella
and smiles, for soon the child will tire.
Naked and free, this stretch of beach and me.
Clothed by the sun
covered with sand
man-noise is far away
so far
I can hear the earth speak softly.
Sandbar to sandbar
clear water I wade.
Seaweed, snails, jellyfish and me,
giving each other space
not wanting to intrude
on the water’s quiet interlude.
Enveloped in the billowing arms
filled with passionate wind
the man possesses the tiller
and silently walks on the water.
Make believe seals
sitting on super surfer boards
watching, waiting,
wound-up
spring-steel tight
ready to be caught
curled
and spit out on the shore.
A warm day
smack dab in mid-winter.
Hot sun, cold water.
Skin,
pale and wrinkled
covered in long underwear crinkles
is taking a day,
letting the sun
shine the chill away.
Pendulum swinging,
tic tok , tic tok
the old man follows with a bent back walk.
Earphones halo his intent wrinkled face
listening
listening
for a treasure.
His shovel is sheathed
to his old belted side
rusty and bent from years of
digging
digging
bottle caps
pennies
beer cans
dimes
belt buckles
nickels
broken fishing line
maybe
just maybe
a treasure.
No beach bikini basking in the sun today.
The garb of winter has begun.
Babushka, parka, thermal underwear
hiding skin and gender from view.
The sea’s true lovers have come
in small numbers.
Lonely, cold and blue,
she saved her best for the few.
I see you coming out across the water,
turning everything your favorite slate of gray.
Rain on the water
it doesn’t notice.
Rain on the sand,
it drinks you in.
Rain on my only beach day
I’ll stomp my feet and make you go away.
EPILOGUE
THE CHESAPEAKE BAY,
VIRGINIA'S PART:
A PLACE FOR THE HEART
TO REST
RELAX
ERASE THE ROUGH EDGES
FROM A TIRED SOUL
THE BAPTISM OF PEACE
AND NEGATIVE IONS.
BALANCE