What is it in a beach?
The sands?
All those remembrances
of walking them barefoot
with a walking stick
made out from a piece of cane
thrown out by the sea,
leaving behind
ephemerous footsteps
as volatile as all lifesteps are,
bending to pick seashells
or a stranded piece of driftwood
that might have been,
in other times,
a solid hull that sailed
the world around,
to end up here,
with traces of red paint
in your trembling hands;
a fair girl,
carrying a wild flower in her hair?
The sea?
On peaceful days
a mirror for the sky
with screeching gulls
gliding upside down
or fighting in the air
with cormorants
for a shuddering fish
just fished out;
standing on the tideline
one can see
boats sailing in and out,
ships's shadows
barely breaking the horizon line;
On raging days,
sitting on the dunes
under a rubber cloak
impervious to both dampness
and ill thoughts,
to admire the foam,
far from the reach
of the stormy water claws,
dark rolling thunderous waves,
crowned with whitecaps
following the wind,
the under currents
and the motion of the Earth
in a complex dance,
only comparable to that
of Wordsworth's head-tossing daffodils...
To me, a beach means love.



© 2005 Salvador Oria, aka Argie