©Page Hersey, 2014
Ebb tide this morning leaves a hardpacked, cleanswept
beach, dark gray and good for walking as wet tarmac,
indistinguishable from the beach I walked at sunset yesterday —
though all night long the sea’s been busy as a catfish rearranging
sand, sucking out and tossing back in endless turbulence,
indifferent to the drama of a single grain.
Feeling frail and mortal these past weeks, helpless
To stop or even slow the dissolution of ties, the decay of
cells, the diminishment of senses, I watch the
Surfers, lithe, intrepid, in svelte black wetsuits,
bob and rise and dunk, intentional and impotent as commas against
the surging surf that answers to a grammar they cannot parse but yearn
to dance to –
let it carry them, play them, grant them an illusion of mastery –
ride it out, see it through
It is enough
to come out, winded and whole, blood pounding in the head,
sinews taut and tingling with urgent use,
fatigue draining away all stories, leaving the mind
a cleanswept beach
I bless them, and stoop to scoop a divot of wet sand thrown
by a large-footed dog running full-out for the hell of it.
©Catharine Lucas, 2014
Catharine Lucas, a professor of English, emeritus, at San Francisco State University and BAWP Teacher Consultant, has taught undergraduate writers, graduates in composition studies, and teachers of writing for many years. A frequent presence at Asilomar Writer Retreats, she is now trying to teach herself to submit pieces for publication. This is a start!
DP 
August 19, 2014 at 10:37 pm
How full of familiar and yet new images this poem is! I can feel my feet wet in the hard shore sand and see the swimmers “like commas” in the ocean. Bravo, Catherine “Born to write”