June gloom
Point Mugu
Sycamore Cove Beach.
This year we pay the $12 parking fee
Last time, at thirty
We gulped
And U-turned to park
On the side of The 1
And slide down the hill of succulents
to the beach
Today, In the white fog
I inch toward the thundering waves
The sea is all silver
edged in white embroidered foam
The beach is fifteen-year old
Wedding band gold
I step into the ocean foam
And it’s shocking cold
To my toes
But the waves graciously
Rush to greet me
Rising, as I enter the sea
They fold in on themselves, bowing
And softly pool
Around my feet
What would knock me
Unconscious 40 feet away
Smoothes like a crepe over the
Sand around me
I stand there until I have eaten my fill.
We hear a thundering now and then
As a well-timed wave charges against the rocks south of us.
We can barely see it, through the fog,
Salt water splashes as high
As the highway above
My daughter wears
My extra flip-flops for the first time today
Because we can’t find hers
And she’s out-grown them anyway
Mine are big on her feet, but barely
My children run up the beach
Away from the unexpected wave
Their feet pound but the sound is absorbed by wet sand
And haze.
Pelicans ride the waves
In twos and threes
One after another all the way down the beach.
They fly so near the moving surface
How do you they know how low is too low?
And is it for work or for fun?
My children build elaborate sand castles
As far west
As they can
And must start from scratch
Every so often
Just as we have done
Moving west.
I sit on the blanket
Haze now crawling between me and my son at the edge of the sea
And also between my son and the wall of waves beyond him.
The waves rise behind him slowly,
to three, four five times his height
before they crest and fall innocently spitting at his sand-castle
It feels precarious
With him out there in the world
Beyond my reach
We brought him to the beach
The day after he was born
Back then he and I slept under shade
While father and daughter played
Now the sea spreads out like spider webs under his feet
Soon my sandy blonde
will turn snow white thin and silver
Like the edges of the sea
And I will face it squarely
Leaning in
With both feet planted
I didn’t come here to fight
But to face every wave.