Water's Edge

During April Poetry month, I attended a lovely day of poetry discussion with the Poetry Detectives group followed by a short workshop sampler offered by Nancy Long on the Japanese Haibun form.

Following is one attempt.  There have been many others since.  This can be kind of addicting.    

   Water’s Edge

The mailbox at the end of a Carolina strand nods with sea oats pushed eastward by prevailing winds.  We leave messages on yellow paper as children, wistful promises of our return.

In starglow one milky way night I run with a flashlight from far up the beach to alert the porch people of the hatch.  I’d felt them first, tickling the tops of my brown feet, then caught them in a pale light beam as they scurried to the surf line.  Other children join me as we call for our mothers in the dark, strain to hear their watery voices over the whooshing of waves and all that wonderment.

We carry you out of the cottage, sorrowful, sniffling, suffering your infant adjustments to the hum of strange waters.  At the end of the still warm boardwalk,  a holy circle of strangers gathers round an enormous black disc , a muted scratching, a thwap, a thump, a digging spray of cool night sand.  You quiet like the rest of us, breathe in the leatherback night, the luminous pearlescent jewels deposited just so.  Later, we follow her at a distance, the silent procession of us, stopping at the ocean’s edge, mouths agape, tears on our cheeks.  And you sleep.

Stars in a night sky

Illuminate the wonder

Promise of return

BLR-- Poplar Grove Muse