Poetry Thursday

I chose this poem today because to me it epitomizes what poetry is about- painting a picture so vivid that you can almost hold it in your hands. I'm always amazed at how people do that with words. Check out the Sixteen Rivers Press, a shared-work, non-profit poetry collective in San Francisco, which my aunt is a founder and memebr of.

Poetry has always been a bit confusing to me, a bit "beyond" me- or so I thought- but Poetry Thursdays is helping me get past that and see it as the magic that it truly can be. Thanks Liz and Lynn! Check out their new Poetry Thursday Blog- its brilliant!

View from the Headland: Hare Creek Beach, Mendocino

By Lynn Lyman Trombetta

Except for the gulls, which lift

in languid curves from the sand

and swing back down,

they are the only ones on the beach,

this teenage couple

cutting their afternoon classes.

She is ten feet ahead of him, her shoes

already off, thrown down. Her long skirt

gathered up to her thighs as she enters the sea.

Enters it, as if it had called her,

her white legs flashing in the sun.

And he runs to catch up, puts his hands

on her shoulders and drives her

through the surf. He's smitten and loopy.

He veers off, flapping, circles back

like a gull, lassoes her around the neck

with his arms, around the waist, twirling himself

around and around the long stem of her body,

pulling and pulling her to him.

And she doesn't object, she leans right in

as they stagger like drunks

to a warm pocket of sand and fall in.

Do they know they are this beautiful?

His goofy, tender urgency. Her calm

regard and disregard of him as she sits

staring out at the waves, her hand shading

her eyes. As he kneels now, before her,

trying to be the only object on her horizon.

When they kiss, when their faces rise

to the kiss, I have to look away, though

the sea is still rolling, the gulls still crying.

Though the day, it seems should screech

to a halt, all its bright engines jumping their tracks,

this moment held out, separate from time.

But the waves are still blue, the waves

are still pulling and pulling at the sand,

they touch and touch again. The sun is shining,

and he's coming back to her for more, more kisses,

leaning over her for more, more of the same.