Walking south down the long beach
is to journey into the ancient or always
with wave upon wave of time spewing
dead polished shells, brown bulbs of tangled
sea vines limp on blue-black sands and
round wet boulders plopped here and there
set in stolid repose as you approach the tall
eastern cliffs, resolute guards of the white
frothed sea which forever comes and goes

Walking south you feel the great swell
of time and see the prehistoric brown
pelicans with traces of pterodactyl in
boomerang wings, riding unseen highways
never looking down just staring ahead with
deep black eyes, fixed on a place, a hidden
Netherworld of old, somewhere south
(somewhere nowhere), unseen, inaccessible
by those in the present, in the now

And suddenly you approach the jutting
cliff, your view blocked by its craggly
visage and you’re frightened, by waves
now louder, surf more menacing, more
purposeful (why is it pounding so?), you’re
swallowed up, disappearing, ebbing into
relentless sea, retrieved, pulled into a
past, into rocks and shells and bulbs,

into forever

– by MJB