Such Are the Days

       white sand stretches before me

a ribbon of lace licked by aquamarine;

       I walk just along the edge where

land meets sea, following three-toed prints

       of the brown and white sandpipers;

no one else is here—not yet—this is my time,

       before the tourist, before the sun-bathers

before the children bobbing like dumplings;

       I am what I am, a snowbird with wings,

my skin warm and brown, spotted with age;

        no need for a bikini or selfies on the beach,

I lift my head to watch the pelicans dive for fish;

         I inhale the salt water, relish the breeze,

saturated with gratitude for a life well-lived.

Bereavement 

Shifting brown sand

scuttles against my bare toes

as the wind combs through

strands of unbound hair.

The scent of salt 

hangs in the air,

begging to be inhaled—

yet I cover my nose,

stumbling haphazardly

toward the rim of ribboned blue.

How foreign this isolation;

I don’t understand the language,

not even from the throats

of raging gulls.

I scream at the feather-wisp clouds

as if the God veiled behind them

will answer.

And maybe he does,

for suddenly you’re here—

a sugar-spun figure

part earth, part salt,

shape-shifted

into a boneless castle

overlooking the sea.

Choking on desire,

I reach out

grasping

grasping—

granules slip away.

Fog Lands

before the morning sun crests the hill,

the valley lies shrouded in frosty fog,

an ancient land filled with the wonder

of changing leaves, deer nuzzling the

last summer clover. And it’s here in this

ethereal place that I silently sit on a log

inhaling the damp, crisp air, listening

to melodic birdsong, feeling as if I am

grafted from my grandpa’s bones, his hips,

his arms, his legs, his never-bending spine—

tending the same fields, staring at the same

tender green shoots of crops in the spring,

gathering up stalks of corn come autumn.

I smoke my pipe and wonder how long 

It takes spiders to build their complex webs

and if they use the morning dew to make

their tea. Filled with neither sorrow nor regret,

I stretch my legs and stand just as the first

shards of amber light split the fog in two.