Point Reyes National Seashore
Summer beckoned
we walked through a woodland
of coastal lady ferns, past bishop pines
down to a windswept beach
as fog pulled away from the shore
the light across the waves dappled
briny aroma permeated late afternoon
and we took refuge in the last of the day.
It was a day like that
sun and a bit of sand
and the promise of summer stretched before us
like the white lines on the highway
the solitude of the back roads took us home.
At the window, late June
morning fog hangs just above the Bay
foghorns moan
and this morning, like so many others,
nostalgia tethers me to you
toward a remembered place
I think of you there
at the Pacific’s blue door
silver-crested waves dancing toward shore
salt air perfuming the beach
cool breezes fingering your hair
sunlight caressing your shoulders
and blue eyes turning toward me
warm lips stealing my breath
I left that beach
but it never left me.
Jacquie Marietta lives in Iowa and her poetry has been published in Lyrical Iowa
and Monterey Poetry Review. She is a retired Research Associate and wrote poetry
when not at her lab bench, supervising clinical trials, or teaching botany classes at
the University of Iowa and local community college. She lived on the West Coast
for a number of years.
Summer beckoned
we walked through a woodland
of coastal lady ferns, past bishop pines
down to a windswept beach
as fog pulled away from the shore
the light across the waves dappled
briny aroma permeated late afternoon
and we took refuge in the last of the day.
It was a day like that
sun and a bit of sand
and the promise of summer stretched before us
like the white lines on the highway
the solitude of the back roads took us home.
At the window, late June
morning fog hangs just above the Bay
foghorns moan
and this morning, like so many others,
nostalgia tethers me to you
toward a remembered place
I think of you there
at the Pacific’s blue door
silver-crested waves dancing toward shore
salt air perfuming the beach
cool breezes fingering your hair
sunlight caressing your shoulders
and blue eyes turning toward me
warm lips stealing my breath
I left that beach
but it never left me.
Jacquie Marietta lives in Iowa and her poetry has been published in Lyrical Iowa
and Monterey Poetry Review. She is a retired Research Associate and wrote poetry
when not at her lab bench, supervising clinical trials, or teaching botany classes at
the University of Iowa and local community college. She lived on the West Coast
for a number of years.
