Beach Walk

On an early morning walk of coffee and salt under a sullen sky filled with the tridents of wings, I add my footprints beside a blowsy sea (praised be Poseidon,) that accepts the given of a northeast wind, and the still mirror of a summer day. This ocean's re- chargeable, my one immutable constant, except for shifting cobalt, soda bottle green, the edgy, unsettling gray of northeast storms. She alone, resurrects the child in me-- the girl of full moon nights and open windows, the fledgling woman alone in an old garage apartment in her hometown, where a carnelian sun set over fishing vessels and empty river-front packing plants. I share my ocean with other insomniacs. Runners pass, racing the sun to its zenith. Down the beach there is Yoga, and a contemplative in his lawn chair watches the hypnotic breakers form and reform with their zebra patterns, driven, as they are, to decorate the shoreline, to deposit spittle for scavenger sanderlings, chasing miniscule morsels. The haughty gulls' absolute arrogance is skewered by their spindly legs, negotiated so nimbly, two seem a single navigation. Where are the donax when the waves roll back, hard- wired to burrow their small shells in wet sand? Are they history, as in sea oats I may not pick, sand hills I may not climb, seines no longer dragged by neighborhood guys bare-chested in waist deep surf to snare slippery supper. "Dommage"! "Que lastima"! All of the above. As for myself, I sail my colors high, no pity here--"Tout change, tout change, tout a' grandi' like the sea urchin I once was, washing away the blemishes of being.