The Mirror of the Sea

We didn't make it to the beach this summer (what a pampered thing to be disappointed about!). I took some fun trips, but as usual, visiting people won out over visiting places.

I miss the beach-- having spent several (non-consecutive) years growing up in Oceanside, CA, it's one of the things that holds a sense of home for me. I like the beach best alone-- time to contemplate the vastness, the power of the crashing waves, the ambivalent steely color of the water. I like the ocean on gray days, and on stormy days best, strong and fearless and intense-- not children-with-little-red-buckets days. I don't like it passive.

maggie and millie and molly and may
went down to the beach (to play one day)

and maggie discovered a shell that sang
so sweetly she couldn't remember her troubles,and

millie befriended a stranded star
whose rays five languid fingers were;

and molly was chased by a horrible thing
which raced sideways while blowing bubbles :and

may came home with a smooth round stone
as small as a world and as large as alone.

for whatever we lose(like a you or a me)
it's always ourselves we find in the sea.
-e. e. cummings