Take Me To The Beach

it may seem you've become the pauper,
  been left bereft and love hope poor.
that it's glitterless gold
  staining your soul,
and a sliver of silver
  is your spirit splinter.

but the ocean
  and its beach,
so often your destination,
  in life & imagination,
still has much to teach.

all the years of toes in the sand
  are still here holding onto your hand.
childhood still plays in these waves,
  the adolescent became adult within those waves.

the sunlight splashing down
  with embrace & silent sound
warms you inside & out
  just like the first time you found out
this was the place to learn,
  and you would always return.

the power
  the rolling rumbling echo
    the froth shower
      the NEVER-ENDING flow
still excites
       intoxicates
like the first time
  I discovered I understood
    rhythm & rhyme

the movement of the water
  (the motion of the ocean,
     c'mon, had to say it)
is still exotic
   & hypnotic
and whether watching
  or touching
still makes me feel one with the world

I have run headlong to dive into the water (even when far too cold for anyone and everyone I'm with) and swam and played within the waves and swum out to where it is only swells and scuba'd along shores with yards and yards of water above and cruised in ships along coastlines and in wild wide open oceans and earned a degree studying its forces and formulas and denizens and the awe and joy has never receded with the tide...