Shedding SkinA Poem by G GarciaI went there as a young man, a vacationer, seeking to fill some void, or to create one where flotsam and bullshit cluttered my busy brain. There was the beach, a half-mile
of toe-burning sand, curved in a great cove like some fisheye vision that might
well have been a thousand miles on a misty morning; and the surf, waves that
might have licked into life on some rocky coast in Ireland. There was the sun,
lording over all, casting the landscape in ores and gems whether it was peak
season or deepest winter. There were a thousand
thousand gulls with a taste for greasy French fries and a thousand thousand
children with that very same appetite and same scream. There was the scent of
sunscreen and the stench of seaweed. There was love, and romance novels by the
score to tease lovers in their pudgy, awkward skin. There was the clam shack
that bisected the beach, and the jutting stone jetty that pointed sailors to
the BEST LOBSTER ROLL AROUND!
Squint right from the picnic tables and striped umbrellas and there, stoic
houses squatted in grim defiance of the mighty sea. Look left and there in the
distance stood the lighthouse. It spoke to me, all of it,
sun and sand and wind and wave, and it speaks to me still, murmured whispers filling
empty moments in traffic. At night, I was drawn to the
lighthouse, where all of the polished wonder of the day would seem at once
garish and gaudy. There at the lighthouse, the waves hushed to rumbles and
gurgles. There the gulls tucked bills and dreamed dreams of ketchup and clamcakes.
There, at night, crane upward to see a sea of stars deeper than synapses can
hold. There I was nearly lost in the inscrutable black, in the myriad stars
splayed out like impossible equations. Nearly, save for the
nebulous vulva of the Milky Way splitting the black in a sinewy streamer of
plum, if only on the clearest midnights. There I settled. There I lost
only what I had come to shed, found only what I brought with me. © 2013 G Garcia |
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Added on August 14, 2011 Last Updated on July 17, 2013 AuthorG GarciaHartford, CTAboutGreg Garcia grew up with three channels of television (what kid counted PBS, really?). He is an English teacher, a professional musician, a professional graphic designer, and a father of two wily girl.. more..Writing
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