I hadn't meant to spy on them; just one of my evening walks along the beach. Moonlight gleaming on wet teenage backs. Horseplay crackling in their young male voices-- “King of the Hill” from a rusty life guard chair. I like these memories, the ones that just occur-- when everything is there again....
Coming to find myself again in October. Long trudge to the “Shanty Village” gets me thinking about the wrinkled hand that first took me close to the ageless roar and seething. Skirted bathing suit, indelible tremble of voice-- the woman bringing me beyond the fear that had watched all day from those cautious castles, after being so rudely trounced! She helped me make my peace with what I could neither own nor tame— the sea and me. We walked along the channel then, watching slender fishes in their school-- that even fish would go to school! We had to laugh. Scorching the soles of my feet in the parking lot! Oo-ah-oo-ah! Forgot my flip-flops!
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October now, piling sand along the roadside.... First kiss at Cooks Brook Beach. Surf breaking over this jetty, could have been my heart. I think his name was Stan....
How can people leave their flowers still blooming in window boxes? In the cottage quiet, I can almost picture... bicycles leaning by dripping shower stalls. Beach umbrellas, the smell of suntan lotion, kids roving in barefoot bands.... Fall packs them all away.
While cold advances on the struggling song of crickets, a man, wearing a painter's hat and whistling, does the unthinkable-- hammers plywood over his shanty's windows. I think that summer people can close their eyes. We, of October, have vivid memories-- savoring sources that linger in their endings. Coming late—staying long beyond the leaving-- sleeping warm in winter sands.
prose poem Heading back in a couple of weeks.