Beach Music

I grew up far from the ocean ... any ocean ... so the one time that I got to walk on a real ocean beach was ... to put it mildly ... a most memorable occasion.

Oh, I had glimpsed the ocean at the movies ... in books or magazines ... but never the real thing.

I think I was most impressed, when a face-to-face meeting finally came, with the immensity of it ... its power ... its beauty ... its music.

I tried to get some of that music in this little poem:

BEACH MUSIC

Waves come tumbling

onto the docile shore,

flinging foamy fingers

across the ochre plane.

Teeming with bubbles,

they search and settle,

soothingly diminuendo,

on a healing chord.

Eliciting a sigh

from pliant, sandy keys,

the fingers slide off

into the lap of the sea,

where joyous whitecaps

merrily urge them,

jostle and encourage them

to play it all again.

© 1998

(originally published in Capper's, now back for an encore appearance with one of my little watercolors)

***

Today's word: joyous

Afterthoughts ... in response to your comments:

Thank you, Helen, for that kind comment.

Sort of a "luck of the draw" today, Kelly, but I'm glad you liked the combination ... and "this little jaunt."