Carmel Beach
A walk before breakfast
Blue-green sea rolls toward shore
A field of grass, blowing
Waves turning one after another
Pages in a book.
Five surfers wear wet suits
Arms drape over boards
Bobbing up and down
Red and white floats
Fastened to fishing lines.
Sand crabs cluster on the beach
Just out of water’s reach
Football players huddling,
Arched sloping backs
Small suspension bridges.
Brown pelicans arrive
A low flying squadron
Gliding six inches above the sea
Model airplanes
Tethered to invisible wires.
A solitary fisherman leans over
The lone boat in the water
Sets the anchovy bait
Casts toward the horizon
While a waning moon watches.
Lost and Found
Next time you’ll notice them –
she cross legged, a budda praying, wearing
red and gray – combing the beach. Her left
hand grasping a stick, moving side to side,
pendulum of a clock sweeping layers of sand.
He’s clad in black and gray, wearing glasses,
resting on his side, a sea lion lolling in the surf.
His right hand washes over sand in long slow arcs
like a Rainbird sprinkler. He rises to hands and knees;
continues motion, as if conducting music.
They gather tiny shells, smooth pebbles,
bits of worn colored glass. Small treasures –
like the simple pleasures of their fifty year marriage:
unnumbered hours together, laughter with family
and friends, sharing sun, sand and sea.
What brought them here this April morning
where clouds slip across blue,
dew clings to tattered spider webs like beads of mercury,
and succulent ice plants edge
the winding path to the beach?
Lost in the familiar, she sighs,
“I could stay here forever.”
They rise slowly, each carrying a bag.
Sure of what they found.
Unaware what they left behind.
Tom Myers is a retired elementary school teacher who has lived the vast majority of his life in California's Central Valley. He enjoys the outdoors: walking his dog Ajax, hiking, birding and gardening. He lives in Modesto with his wife while their three adult daughters live under the same western sky. His poems have been published in more than soil, more than sky, Quercus, Rattlesnake Review, Collision II, hardpan and 4more. He has one chapbook, The Lost Language of Birds.
A walk before breakfast
Blue-green sea rolls toward shore
A field of grass, blowing
Waves turning one after another
Pages in a book.
Five surfers wear wet suits
Arms drape over boards
Bobbing up and down
Red and white floats
Fastened to fishing lines.
Sand crabs cluster on the beach
Just out of water’s reach
Football players huddling,
Arched sloping backs
Small suspension bridges.
Brown pelicans arrive
A low flying squadron
Gliding six inches above the sea
Model airplanes
Tethered to invisible wires.
A solitary fisherman leans over
The lone boat in the water
Sets the anchovy bait
Casts toward the horizon
While a waning moon watches.
Lost and Found
Next time you’ll notice them –
she cross legged, a budda praying, wearing
red and gray – combing the beach. Her left
hand grasping a stick, moving side to side,
pendulum of a clock sweeping layers of sand.
He’s clad in black and gray, wearing glasses,
resting on his side, a sea lion lolling in the surf.
His right hand washes over sand in long slow arcs
like a Rainbird sprinkler. He rises to hands and knees;
continues motion, as if conducting music.
They gather tiny shells, smooth pebbles,
bits of worn colored glass. Small treasures –
like the simple pleasures of their fifty year marriage:
unnumbered hours together, laughter with family
and friends, sharing sun, sand and sea.
What brought them here this April morning
where clouds slip across blue,
dew clings to tattered spider webs like beads of mercury,
and succulent ice plants edge
the winding path to the beach?
Lost in the familiar, she sighs,
“I could stay here forever.”
They rise slowly, each carrying a bag.
Sure of what they found.
Unaware what they left behind.
Tom Myers is a retired elementary school teacher who has lived the vast majority of his life in California's Central Valley. He enjoys the outdoors: walking his dog Ajax, hiking, birding and gardening. He lives in Modesto with his wife while their three adult daughters live under the same western sky. His poems have been published in more than soil, more than sky, Quercus, Rattlesnake Review, Collision II, hardpan and 4more. He has one chapbook, The Lost Language of Birds.