A Beach Sits

A beach sits, as an island, on

the precipice of fog and dreams.

Ideas glisten and sweat in a cloudy sun.

The air is cool and moist. It smells

like the lake and like the city and like

the damp earth. It blows my hair

into a swirl and I smile.

A beach is the crossing point,

connection, convolution of grass and

sand and air and lake. The sounds

are all wrong for that sort of place.

Green grows between grains and boats

like trains wait endlessly passing,

with motors and sails and children

laugh and play and tease and confused

seagulls dive and sit, perched hungry.

While in that cold sucking air

the sand hits my face like the planes

overhead hit a runway, touch and go

glancing like dragonflies or birds on

the water.

The pier's closed! But the sailboats and

adolescents and sunworshippers still glisten

like sheet metal in a hurricane whipping

with wind. The grass tickles my back.

White foam rolls thunderously with four inches

of fury.

My sunglasses fall and the paper won't blow

and I arch like a tree filled with blackbirds.

The beach aches with the knowledge of

feet and silt and sun, shadows like rain lie, fall

with amber sweetness on the sand.

A beach wants it's mother to know that

it's happy and peaceful and changing and stormy and

sunny and foggy.

There are boys playing football and a couple

rolling in the sand and there are children

on the jungle gym. There is a sunbather with a black bikini that smiles

at the sun with squinty eyes.

Ghosts of university pass complacently

through the halls of my mind. I will not

wander forever. There must be a time in

every man's life where he either seeks the home and comfort

of his mothers breast or needs to conquer a

new mountain.

The water is cool against hot feet and the

sand is cold and the water boils.

The grains stick to my back.

Sophie the dog runs with her tongue out

across the water's edge and her troop of

humans follow laughing and chasing and calling.

Everyone smiles and lovers kiss and

young explorers pull clam shells with

dirty fingers and secret giggles and their jeans

rolled up to their knees, muddy.

There is a boat that sits offshore

that I will never be. The lake is

too vast for me to swim and the earth

calls to me. I am a mix of sand and

water and air and fog and trees. I am ground

and dreams, sails and roots. I am

indecision. I am rocking in the waves.

I am blowing in the wind. As a tree.

As a sail. As a grain of sand. As

the wind itself, carrying conversation and

the laughter of children across a Sunday

afternoon.

5 September 2004