A Walk Upon the Beach

We went walking on the beach this afternoon at the close of a getaway snatched from the jaws of everyday time. I was mesmerized, as if never before, by how life can slide into another frequency altogether when you sit awhile and gaze at the ocean.

I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black.

The sunlight dazzles with diamond delight while the waves roll with an hypnotic fluidity and the muffled roar of a thousand singing voices. And I sense them, those sea-girls, floating  faintly just beyond the horizon’s reach.

April is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.

Soon April will be upon us. It’s in my mind to race to the terrifying finish line of The Raven and take a tour into Eliot’s territory once more; a journey I’ve been contemplating for some time. I’m increasingly drawn back to poetry these days. As I teach this magical art from its beginning in my schoolroom, I see so many of its contours with new eyes. I fear and mourn for those in whom a love for this genre with all of its elements is not encouraged and cultivated.

Footprints tiptoe through the sand and vanish underneath the water’s edge while our daughter  builds sandcastles as I sit. After a weekend of fiercely precise rhythmic gymnastics competing, the endless expanse of this sunny beach is simply what she needs. Just turned eleven a few days ago, this girl of ours brings a joy and beauty to our lives that I will always hold close to my heart. The hound too, in his happiest place on earth, is exactly where he should be; celebrating his thirteenth birthday alongside her eleventh. As he rolls and rolls and digs into the sand, the sun holds still in the sky. I raise my eyes to the ocean once more and drink in the endless blue.