Beachscape

I haven't blogged for a while, but here is a new poem.

Beachscape

Surprising that I never knew before
the bright curve of this bay,
the way the washed sand crimps the light
and bathers lounge like graceless seals.

I must have visited this coast
a hundred times, yet never understood
how marram grass secures the dunes
with subterranean roots, and why

we only see the coiled casts of the lugworm,
never the lugworm. What the lobster does.
When tides turn with the moon.
If mermaids count the coins within their purse.

It’s odd how just one shower, one rainbow,
one brief focus, one slant of the sun,
one mood, one chemistry, one instant,
combine in random destiny like this

to give us more than ever we expected:
the revelation of a cream-tipped wave,
spent on the sand, the gull’s orgasmic cry,
greedy and wild, the sensuality

of sun on skin, of arms and legs in water,
impressionistic light
breaking the bonds of molecule and atom
yet bringing all together like the roots

of marram grass, the disappearing groynes
rotting with knowledge, the unknowing ocean,
the beach bums gazing vacantly to sea
aching for grace, dreaming epiphany.