Beachy

I grew up on the beach and if sand isn't in my veins, it is at least metaphorically in my hair.  So I was happy to score a beach house for Labor Day weekend, and hopeful that the Oregon coast would come through with at least a couple of sunny days while we were there.  Amazingly, the sun was out most of the time, and on Saturday a hot east wind made it reasonable to immerse briefly in the ice cold ocean and then lay out on the sand, soaking up the heat.

Oregon actually has a relatively high rate of skin cancer, because of moments like this.  With so many cloudy days this summer, an opportunity to bare skin is a religious moment for some of us.  I lay down on a towel and dug my fingers into the warm silky sand, remembering all the childhood days when I did the same thing, loving the surf filling up my ears with sound.  I actually fell asleep for a little while, which is rare indeed. Later I took a walk after sunset and engaged in another childhood pleasure-- walking with my eyes closed.  As far as I know, the beach is the only safe place to do this.  

Walking on the beach always gives me a chance to think expansively.  Perhaps the ocean stretching to the horizon pulls thoughts out and strings them together in long sentences that can be grasped better than when they run around the little tracks in my cranium.  But I came out of that weekend with a firm intention to focus my efforts on one interest at a time, instead of a dozen all at once.  Hence, I have gone back to an old project--getting all my poems in one virtual place, even if I have to type them all again, into this computer.  This task has been about two thirds done for about five years.  But until I have it all the way done, I can't decide what can be done with them, and what can be done next.   Tonight I opened up the box with all the pieces of paper with poems on them, sorting which are digitally preserved and which are not.  I still am filled with intention, and here is a poem from the collection.

Meditation

Air slips over sand, surf thumps
applauding each wave lipping the beach.

gulls butcher sandcrabs with a crunch
and garnish of seaweed

quartz runs fine like bathwater
through my fingers,

light stretches elastic across the sky
saturating sea and the dome behind my iris

each angle unbends toward the horizon
until I know nothing more.