When I read this poem (just kidding) No but seriously, the poem works
through images, and I feel the beach smells, I see the reds of S2, etc.,
but in the end I'm not sure what I see or feel. The last strophe ends
where the first began -- on the beach -- but I don't feel I have been
through a sufficiently coherent journey. I feel that this is more of a
private journal entry than a poem intended for a general audience.
Carl
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South Beach, Low Tides
When I smell onions, I remember
clam chowder simmering in the double-wide
on a Memorial Day weekend afternoon,
fresh baked bread ready to remove from the oven,
clams dug from the granite sand of South Beach,
morning fog so thick it plugs up your nose
with salt air and the odor of dead crabs at low tide.
When I see your new scarlet dress, I think
of a windsock riding along the beach
a vain attempt to fly a sock mistaken for a kite,
Willy's red pickup stuck in the creek,
another futile effort to beat the tidal flow.
Hazel claimed it was the fourth he left
stuck in the mud to rust until it drifted to China.
When I hear a train whistle, I'm taken back
to days when the Southbound came through at 5 am
and the Northbound at dinner, the first our alarm
to rise to dig, the evening run for pennies on the track,
flattened souvenirs found many years later
among sand dollars, kite string, Nehi bottle caps,
and a ruby shoe, size 2, rescued from the surf.
When I taste hot chocolate laced with whipped cream,
memories of peanut butter sandwiches, wild strawberries,
root beer Kool Aid, burnt hot dogs and marshmallows
flood back like high tide washing an empty beach clean.
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