Poem: A Day at the Coast

I was walking through town

Alone

As always when I travel home.

The neighborhood along

The main road

Is an unappetizing sight, really,

(What with neon signs

Flashing advertisements

And the dull bustle of cars

And buses),

But for the graceful petite trees with small scarlet berries

That they are gowned in even in winter.

I once asked my mother

What type they are called

But she only gave me the name in the language

We speak other than English.

She said

When she was a girl

She made necklaces out of them

In her native country.

I ask a lot about her childhood

But don’t get a lot

Out of her.

My glasses have pinpricks of light

Reflections from the achingly sun too bright

To look at

That resemble the sparkling inter-locking crystals

In granite.

It is January

But the mild day makes my face

Warm.

Even the breeze is spring-like

And balmy.

I was disappointed that it didn’t

Snow at all last year.

Other than the white powdery stuff

That thing I savor most

About

Winter

Is the smell of frost in the freezing air.

But right now,

My hair

Flowing in the pleasant wind

Suits me well for now.

I pass the stores

And the odor of clothes cling to them

And see

Tiny brown song birds

Perched on pole wires

Twittering away

Flying with the agility of hummingbirds.

~

I am now eating raisins

From a plastic bag

As well as sour yogurt from

An enormous container

While wearing a blue oversized faded T-shirt

With the aroma of the beach.

I watch the heaving ocean

Through my balcony glass door

As I consume peach oatmeal with donut shreds

Since I could not find any bread

Crumbs.

If it was windy,

The sand today would be

Creatively etched

With fine ridges like the Sahara

Although here the pigment is pale

And not the rich orange-brown of deserts.

Here the dunes are long gone

Tramped by beach-goers

With only one measly hill struggling to prolong

The inevitable consequences of erosion.

Farther down,

Where people don’t really care about the sea

Or even use it as leisure

The dunes are still there

Flattened out perhaps

But overgrown by green reedy plants

Like the grass father inland

And seagulls flock there by the hundreds.

I saw such a huddle and dubbed it

Unimpressive.

What’s impressive about

A white mass,

Where each individual doesn’t count?

In my mind

I picture

The spectacular bird silhouettes soaring outside stained glass.

Now that’s worth seeing.