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, the fiery messengers
of
unfathomable destruction yet to come.
Tourists
walk here, barefoot on the beach.
They
came here, I imagine, as I have
to
remember, not to forget.
To
remember a red dog and a yellow-haired child
as
they enter the water, their cries of goodly shock
and
honest forevers cold, blue, and always new.
A
white heron stands
balanced in perfect equanimity upon one leg.
Wave
forms overlay my feet,
transparent hieroglyphs of infinity:
Her
way of speaking
Her
manifest, unspoken words.
A
brown man lies spread eagled on the cliff.
He
is cast between sky and sea and land,
sand
sunk, leaf-molten, blackberry thorn, the Green.
Toes,
fingers, flesh reaching into 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 re-membering.
I
see a girl, walking on this very beach.
Yesterday,
and 30 years ago
(how did I get here from there?)
She
is sourcing,
sourcing the one who lives here,
a
river Goddess with no name.
She
has made a mermaid offering
of
sand and stick and seaweed.
I
can hear her sand prayers sound here still,
wave
resonant,
purified by fire and time,
memory
rooted,
sky seeded, they ring true still,
here,
in Gaia.
