"On The Beach"

"Spiral Offering" by Catherine Nash MFA

"Blessed are the Peacemakers,
for they shall inherit the Earth."

ON THE BEACH
(Oct. 11th, 2001)

One month
after the world ended.

The little island world we,
the privileged few, could pretend
was safe, forever, and righteous

The fallen towers,
fiery messengers
of unfathomable destruction yet to come.

Tourists walk barefoot
on the familiar beach.
They came here, I imagine,
as I have, not to forget,
but to remember.

To remember driftwood and high tide.
To remember a red dog, and a yellow-haired child
as they enter the water -
their cries of goodly shock
and honest forevers
always new, always cold, and blue.

A white heron,
balanced in perfect equanimity
on one leg.

Wave forms overlay my feet,
transparent hieroglyphs of infinity.
Her way of speaking.
Her manifest, unspoken words.

A brown man
lies beside the mossy cliff, spread-eagled
between sky and sea and land.

Sand sunk, leaf-molten,
blackberry thorn - into the green.
Toes, fingers, flesh
reaching into the green

the green,
redeeming Earth.
He is rooting himself.
He is taking himself back.

I lie down in grateful imitation, a stranger
in companionable human proximity,
sharing this rite of remembering.

I close my eyes, and see her.
A girl, walking on this very beach
Yesterday, and 30 years ago.
I see her sourcing,
sourcing the one who lives here.
A river Goddess
with no name.

She has made a mermaid offering
of sticks and sand and seaweed.

Companions arrive, offer shells,
and then return to Berkeley.
To Vietnam, the Cold War,
the Berlin Wall,
the war, the wall,
the war, the walls.
The war,
and the summer of love.

("the revolution will not be televised")

A generation to end war, raise hell, raise consciousness,
raise Atlantis, and raise the new and Golden Age

("the revolution will not be televised")

How did we get here
from there?

I call you back, girl.
I call you back.
I am at the other end of this life now.

Your sand prayers
ring here still, still ring true.

The Earth
is my witness.

Lauren Raine (2001)